EDITORIAL - Strikes are useless

It is good that transport groups that earlier threatened to stage a two-day nationwide transport strike beginning today have agreed to cancel the protest action. The cancellation came about after government promised to review a new policy that was to have imposed higher penalties for traffic violations.

The plain and simple solution to the problem would have been for public transport drivers to observe traffic rules. You observe traffic rules, you make no violations. You make no violations, you pay no penalties. You pay no penalties, there is no problem.

That only public transport drivers protested the new policy is very telling. It is because they are the greatest violators of traffic rules. They are the most abusive drivers on the streets. Other drivers have not raised a peep about the new policy. It poses no problem to them. They consciously obey all traffic rules.

Nevertheless, granting that the new penalties are indeed too high, still going on a two-day strike does not help anyone. Unless the protesting drivers are prepared to match government's anticipated bull-headedness, a two-day strike will be nothing but an inconvenient and futile exercise.

All that a two-day strike will do is make false heroes of strike leaders and give them undeserved time on tv screens. Meanwhile, the rest of the country will suffer. Business productivity will plummet, classes will be missed, health emergencies will be unattended.

And all for a goal that will never be met, unless of course the drivers are prepared to go all out and truly twist the arm of government in a way painful enough to make it come crashing down on its knees. To do that, drivers will need to strike, not for a day or two but for a month, or for as long as it takes.

In other countries, strikes often achieve the object of the protest because the protesters are prepared to go on indefinitely. In the Philippines, strikes often take no more than a day. A strike like that achieves nothing except to inconvenience everyone and make losers of all.

So unless they have other things on their minds, if two days are all that they are willing to fight for their unreasonable cause, then it is good that the drivers have decided to cancel the planned strike. Nothing is more irritating than a useless and inconvenient sacrifice.