The Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM), together with transport and urban poor organizations, will start today, October 21, the campaign to occupy various symbols of corporate greed in Metro Manila.  We are starting with the Big Three multinational oil companies which have raked in super profits week after week while motorists and ordinary people suffer in escalating prices and intense poverty.  The three top firms are Petron, Shell and Caltex.

We consider corporate greed as one of the main reasons contributing to the poverty of millions of people in the Philippines and in the world.  Corporate greed is signified in the case of the Big 3 oil companies whose profits have increased by more than six times since 2001 as the per liter prices of petroleum products almost tripled in the same period.

We join the transport sector and various urban groups in the country in protesting the weekly increase of gasoline prices which also lead to spiraling prices of basic commodities. The Big 3 oil companies have been involved in the cartelization of the industry, and the overpricing and manipulation of prices of its oil products.

We also join the hundreds of thousands who are participating in the global Occupy movement against corporate greed in many parts of the world, specifically the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States which has started the global occupy action. The Occupy action symbolizes the struggle of the 99% against the greedy, profit-seeking 1% in society.  In the Philippines alone in the last decade, the net worth of the five richest families has increased 72.5% to over P387 billion ($9 billion), while a worker on the minimum wage earned only around P86,000 ($2000) per year.

We vow to continue our actions in order that social justice be attained by the majority of the population who have long been exploited and oppressed by the mere 1% of the population who holds so much wealth and power and perpetrates the gross social inequality in our society today.

Sonny Melencio
Chairperson, Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM)

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