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The ever-worsening economic crisis in the Philippines inflicts heavy blows, especially on the toiling masses. Recent increases in the prices of basic commodities, which have been successive and unremitting, have hit the people hard. The amount needed to maintain a decent life increases on a daily basis. Workers' wages, however, remain pegged at extremely low levels and the incomes of peasants and others from the toiling masses are extremely inadequate. The price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) was hiked anew by P1.70 per kilo on June 17. Since the elections, oil companies have increased gasoline and diesel prices twice. Not content with having hiked the prices of their products seven to eight times this year, they are planning another round of price increases by July. MERALCO is unrelenting in its attempts to increase electricity charges. This, despite the Supreme Court ruling declaring that the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) had abused its authority and that its approval of MERALCO's 12 centavo per kilowatt-hour provisional increase since November 2003 was illegal. The latter comes on top of the 13.7 centavo/kwh hike in MERALCO rates beginning July and the 14-38 centavo/kwh charged by NAPOCOR for the electric power it supplies to MERALCO and other distributors. It is the public that will be made to shoulder NAPOCOR's additional charges in the form of higher electricity bills. Water service charges are also poised to increase. Since public utilities were deregulated and privatized, bills for their services have risen by over 500%. Aside from all this, the regime intends to levy additional taxes make up for the large budget deficit and to pay for the ever-increasing government debt.
Meanwhile, unemployment continues to rise. According to the government's latest statistics, in April, there were two million added to the previous quarter's seven million who were either unemployed or underemployed. If we compare these figures with those of April 2003, the rate of unemployment and underemployment grew from 27.8% to 32.2%. In fact, these figures are still quite understated. The truth is that up to half of the country's labor force has little or no means of livelihood. Even the reactionary government cannot conceal the abject poverty across the country. Up to 90% of the people or almost 72 million Filipinos live on P137 a day, which is only 55% of the minimum daily wage in Metro Manila and 29.4% of the amount needed by a family of six to live decently. The present regime is inutile in resolving the people's economic problems and has failed to provide them with any kind of relief. The regime's response to intensifying poverty is further belt-tightening and the extremely insulting advice to the people to grin and bear it. In truth, the slump in the people's economic conditions is the government's own doing. The government deliberately obstructs wage hikes for private sector workers and salary increases for public sector employees. The slight economic relief achieved by jeepney drivers came after intense struggle and confrontation. The small respite thay have gained from fare hikes has just as quickly been snatched away with increases in the prices of diesel and vehicle spare parts. On the other hand, in accordance with the policy of neoliberalization, privatization and denationalization, the government grants the imperialists and their local henchmen all the right to plunder the economy. It allows imperialists to flood the country with surplus goods and destroy the productive forces in local agriculture and industry. To attract foreign capital, the government allows imperialists complete freedom with respect to the entry and operations of their capital and businesses. Even strategic and public services have been entrusted in the hands of foreign companies and their comprador counterparts. Its natural result is the unrestrained and excessive increases in the prices of petroleum products and basic goods and services. This year, the regime allowed hikes in electricity rates and taxes to recover the over P500 billion NAPOCOR debt that it assumed in accordance with the provisions of the anti-people Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA). The Philippines' national economy and the economic conditions of ordinary folk are in shambles. The solution lies only in the hands of the people and the revolutionary movement. In the face of such a situation, it is very important to advance various means of struggle: There are economic mass struggles in the various places of production�factories, farms and offices, among others. It is important to take these struggles to the streets and to the general public, to assail and oppose government policies that have condemned the economy to further crisis and the people to further bondage, to demand the resolution of immediate economic issues and acquire even partial economic relief. It is the Party's urgent task to lead and further advance economic struggles; to link and combine them with the outburst of protests against the filthiest and most violent election in Philippine history; to take advantage of intensifying squabbles among the ranks of reactionaries and the prevailing chaos, paralysis and weakening of reactionary rule as a result of the unresolved question of who won the presidential polls; and to cause convulsions in the entire reactionary system for the benefit of the revolutionary movement. At the same time, we must continue to implement revolutionary socio-economic programs more vigorously in the New People's Army's bases and areas of operation. Even as we implement agrarian revolution and advance the protracted struggle to fundamentally change the entire system, the people's own efforts to attain immediate relief led by the Party, Red army, revolutionary mass organizations and organs of political power are already a tremendous help. Likewise, the National Democratic Front peace panel and its consultants will exert all efforts to have the draft Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) contain the greatest possible number of significant socio-economic reforms, both immediate and long-term. CASER, which will be the focus of forthcoming discussions in the peace negotiations on June 22-25, 2004 in Oslo, Norway, is the second point in the peace negotiations' substantive agenda. Like CARHRIHL's role on the issue of human rights, the revolutionary movement and the people may use CASER to advance the people's economic struggles and welfare both within and outside revolutionary bases while total revolutionary victory is yet to be achieved and thoroughgoing change in the country's economic and social system yet to be realized. 
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Another planned source for filling up the government deficit is the addition of a 50-100% tax on the consumption of soft drinks.
