Instead of eating lunch, Cagayan Valley tricycle Manong Pedro now just snacks on street food to bring home some earnings to his family. He earns only ₱500 daily, before taking away ₱200 for diesel. He owns his tricycle, thus he pays no boundary fee and deducts only a ₱10 TODA (Tricycle Operators’ and Drivers’ Association) fee. He owes ₱1,000 to a repair shop when his tricycle wheel once got damaged, and he pays it off at ₱100 per day. After plying all day, he brings home only ₱190 to his family.

Manong Pedro is not alone. Like him, Jack, another tricycle driver, also saw his income drop, hitting his capacity to buy food.

“A kilo of rice and two small cans of sardines,” he answered when asked what his full day’s earnings can buy. Jack earns ₱600, minus ₱200 for gasoline, ₱250 for boundary, and ₱10 TODA fee. After plying all day, he brings home only ₱140.

“We’re lucky when my wife occasionally gets laundry work to increase our family income,” he said. His wife might earn ₱500 for a day of doing laundry. But even their combined earnings (₱640) still fall far short of the living wage of ₱1,200.

Commodity prices likewise skyrocketed, small city eatery owner Ate Sally said. She finds it extremely difficult to stretch her capital since she cannot arbitrarily raise the price of her cooked goods.

“Before the mega oil price hike, I earned ₱500 daily but now I only earn ₱300,” she said.

Apart from LPG (liquified petroleum gas) price hikes, vegetable and rice prices also increased. The rice she buys, formerly ₱52/kilo, became ₱56; cabbage, formerly ₱20/kilo, became ₱25. Other vegetables like eggplant and bitter gourd rose by ₱10, from ₱80/kilo to ₱90. She spends ₱100 on tricycle fares for her daily market trips.

Triple whammy

Cagayan Valley is among the regions where oil price surges was highest in March. By month’s end, the average diesel price in the region reached ₱120/liter, and gasoline ₱96/liter. It rose further in April.

Before the successive oil price hikes, the region already had a wide gap between nominal wage and living wage (-₱635). Poverty incidence here was already high (10% of the total population in 2023).

Thus, the massive oil price hike is a triple blow to Cagayanon people’s livelihood. Costs of livelihood rose, the income gap to the living wage widened, and more people suffer hardship in the region.

Inutile government

The Marcos regime boasted of the aid it distributes to supposedly alleviate the deep plunge in people’s livelihood. On April 8, the Tuguegarao local government held a distribution of ₱5,000 for over 7,000 tricycle drivers. Aside from an extreme delay (prices have risen nonstop for a month), this is merely a single-shot handout. It will not last amid the worsening crisis.

Until now, the Marcos regime refuses to remove the VAT and excise tax imposed on diesel and gasoline to lighten the burden carried by people like Manong Pedro, Jack, and Ate Sally.