‘Welgang Bayan’ seen to cripple Metro Cebu

CEBU — Land transportation services and port operations in Metro Cebu are expected to grind to a halt tomorrow and in the next three days as part of a nationwide strike to force President Estrada to resign.

Rudy Laconza, chairman of the Nagkahiusang Drayber Sa Sugbo (NADSU), said the Cebu Confederation of Transport Operators and Drivers Inc. is now being persuaded to join the four-day strike to ensure the total or near-total paralysis of land transportation in the metropolis.

Laconza said the strike will start at 1 a.m. with drivers stationed at established chokepoints.

The transport sector criticizes Mr. Estrada for being negligent of the industry since he assumed office in 1998.

NADSU gave assurances that the strike would be peaceful unless the strikers would be harassed.

The group, along with the Alyansa sa Nagkahiusang Dray-ber Alang sa Reforma and the Southern Cebu Operators and Drivers Association, controls 33 major routes in the city.

The studentry will also join the strike with students in at least five schools — University of San Carlos, University of the Philippines, University of Cebu, Southwestern University and Saint Theresa’s College — expected to walk out of their classes.

But the Coalition of Shipowners is worried about the impact of port stoppage on the economy because Cebu is the major sea transport hub in this part of the country.

Coalition lawyer Dindo Perez said the Maritime Industry Authority is being asked to intervene and look for alternative protest actions for port workers.

The country’s biggest union, the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP), is confident that total work stoppage will descend on the port. It claims 90 percent of port workers are its members.

The Integrated Bar of the Philippines, however, is not joining the strike and is ignoring the call for lawyers to boycott court hearings.

Pedro Rosito, IBP chapter president in Cebu City, said lawyers can instead help the move to pressure Mr. Estrada to resign by gathering evidence against him.

Mr. Estrada is facing impeachment for allegedly taking millions of pesos in payoffs from gambling lords.

Meanwhile, if numbers were the only measure of a rally’s success, the prayer rally at Fuente Osmeña organized by the newly-formed Barug Sugbo Saturday was a dismal flop.

The rally drew no more than 3,000 people based on estimates by neutral observers, compared with the roughly 8,000 mustered by pro-Estrada groups at the same venue last month.

But the pro-Estrada rally was hounded by claims of being a "hakot" crowd, while Barug Sugbo said its participants came in earnest.

Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal was conspicuously missing from Saturday’s rally. His refusal to join the rally was believed to have taken its toll on the number of participants.

Vidal earlier said he was willing to give Mr. Estrada a chance to reform, and refused to join the clamor for the President’s resignation.

Rally organizers, however, insisted that the gathering had Vidal’s blessings.

Ernesto Aboitiz, co-chairman of the Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference and Barug Sugbu convenor, said they had time constraints in preparing for the rally.

Last Friday afternoon, more than 200 college students from Cebu City’s major schools took their anti-Erap sentiments to the streets via a torch parade in the downtown area.— Freeman News Service