Philippine Jeepney Drivers Call Strike Against Trump’s ASEAN Visit

Philippine transport federation PISTON announced Tuesday that it will launch a nationwide strike on November 16, when U.S. President Donald Trump is due to arrive in Manila for the ASEAN summit. The action turns the capital’s iconic jeepneys into a working-class challenge to a gathering built around state power, trade and security.

PISTON national president Mody Floranda made the announcement at a press conference at Baclaran Church. DZRH reported that the federation expects more than 70,000 members to participate and has invited other transport organizations to join. GMA News separately reported that the November 16 stoppage will open a series of protests continuing through Trump’s visit.

The central development is prospective: the strike was announced on November 10 and is scheduled for November 16. Reports differ on its duration. GMA described a one-day transport strike, while the Philippine News Agency said the Palace was preparing for a two-day stoppage beginning November 16. Pamphlets could not independently resolve that discrepancy on Tuesday, and the actual scale of participation will not be known until the action begins.

Floranda said drivers would use their jeepneys to protest Trump’s presence. PISTON has linked the mobilization to U.S. military policy, rising fuel costs and the proposed Pax Silica initiative. Those are the federation’s political claims. The immediate fact is that organized public-transport workers are threatening to withdraw their labor as the Philippine government hosts foreign leaders.

Malacañang has confirmed Trump’s attendance at the summit. Palace press officer Claire Castro said the government would address transport disruptions, but urged demonstrators not to protest during the arrival of foreign guests. Her appeal framed dissent as a question of hospitality. PISTON’s plan frames it as a question of who bears the cost of policies negotiated above workers’ heads.

That conflict is sharpened by preparations in Metro Manila. The government declared November 16–18 special non-working days in the capital region and introduced road restrictions around summit venues. ACT Teachers representative Antonio Tinio accused authorities of removing street vendors, homeless people and small businesses from routes used by delegates. Castro defended the operations as security and regular cleaning measures.

The summit is therefore arriving through two versions of the city. One is the polished corridor presented to presidents and delegations. The other is the city kept moving by drivers, vendors and informal workers whose livelihoods can be treated as obstacles to the spectacle. A transport strike makes that second city politically visible.

ARCHIVE — Jeepneys participating in a transport strike in Manila on March 6, 2023. Photo by Ryomaandres, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

PISTON describes itself as a national federation of public-transport workers and an anti-imperialist organization. Its members have repeatedly fought fare pressures, fuel-price shocks and the government’s public-utility vehicle modernization program. Jeepney drivers often work in fragmented, informal conditions, but collective withdrawal gives them leverage that no ceremonial summit can easily absorb.

The planned action also connects labor demands to foreign policy. PISTON says U.S. wars and geopolitical pressure feed fuel insecurity that reaches drivers directly through pump prices. The exact causes of price movements are broader than any one government, but workers’ exposure is concrete: higher fuel costs compress already thin daily earnings while transport remains essential to millions.

For Pamphlets readers, the announcement belongs beside the ongoing strike by contract cleaners at Jawaharlal Nehru University. The workplaces are different, but the principle is the same: workers who are made peripheral to institutions can still interrupt their normal operation.

The November 16 strike has not yet occurred, and organizers’ participation estimate remains a claim rather than an observed count. What has already happened is politically significant. A mass transport federation has chosen the opening of a regional summit—and the arrival of the U.S. president—as the moment to insist that international policy is also a workplace issue.