Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte on Monday, March 6, denied the “red-tagging” of public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers, but maintained that the transport strike was “communist-inspired” and that the learners became “casualties” of the protest.  In a statement, the official stressed that the transport group Pinagkaisang Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Operators Nationwide (Piston) was “poisoned by the ideologies of the bankrupt Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), and the New People’s Army (NPA).” This remark came after the Vice President criticized PUV drivers who started their transport strike today and will last until March 12.  “And happily cavorting with Piston and other militant organizations is ACT, a group that is diametrically nowhere near in the service of the interest of the learners and the education sector,” she said of Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Party-list group, which called on the Department of Education (DepEd) to cancel classes in areas that would be affected by the strike.  “This is not red-tagging. This is a statement of fact,” Duterte added.  She described the transport strike as “a painful interference” in the country’s efforts to address the learning gaps and problems in the education system. “We oppose it because it is problematic, it will hurt our learners, and the inconvenience that it may cause comes with an enormous price deleterious to learning recovery efforts — and this is a price that learners will have to pay,” she said. The Vice President stressed that the strike turned learners and teachers into “casualties.” “If you cannot understand our position, or refuse to understand our position, or even pretend not to understand our position, this is only because of your unbelievable propensity to push a hardline agenda that punishes the general public,” she said. The strike, which will run from March 6 to 12 and would involve some 40,000 traditional jeepneys and UV express units, is a protest by transport groups against the jeepney modernization program. The program would phase out traditional jeepneys by year’s end, and would require operators of consolidated entities to purchase modern vehicles that cost between P2.4 million and P2.8 million each.