Agency footage shows residents walking along the twelve-and-a-half-kilometer long Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City, taking up two lanes of the highway around seven in the morning.
Drivers claim that the shortage and sharp rise in fuel prices are weighing on most households. Fuel costs make up the largest part of expenses. Many go to work late and some don’t even manage to show up.
“A national energy emergency has been declared due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the immediate threat to the availability and stability of the country’s energy resources,” the presidential office said in a statement last week.
Drivers of jeepneys, the most popular form of public transportation in the Philippines, staged a two-day nationwide protest on Thursday demanding the abolition of excise tax and the 12% value-added tax on fuel. The government offered compensation of 5,000 pesos (about 6,000 crowns), which critics described as a mere temporary solution. Gasoline prices rose by up to 12 pesos (14 crowns) per liter and diesel by up to 18 pesos (21 crowns).
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. he said the government would provide an additional million barrels of oil to increase reserves and cover roughly 45 days of supplies.
The Persian Gulf region found itself at war after the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. The conflict has squeezed global fuel supplies as shipments through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the main route for a fifth of the world’s oil, have been disrupted. The Philippines and other countries in Southeast Asia and the Far East have received most of their oil from here until now.
