I may be a little late here, but for the record, I believe this strike was much more than just "street punks" thugging it out for a day. The amount of taxes, tariffs, duties, etc taking place in this country are beyond anything I have ever seen in my life -not even in the US. You buy something and 1. You're getting it more expensive than what its really worth, half the time. 2. Most likely with bad service; 3. Add a little bit of ITBIS (17%); 4. Add a "little" bit of Ley (16% as "mandated" by his Holyness); combined with super minimum wage + for every 2k of gas you buy $800 goes to his Holyness; plus education cuts and an unconstitutional lack of support for a constitutionally-backed and postulated 4% increase on education; PLUS 8% hike in electricity (for a company that purposefully gives BAD service by cutting out the lights depending on where you live); add to that a disgruntled LE outfit which gets paid barely the minimum, who consequently are only out to kick @#$ and take names and you've got an EXPLOSIVE situation. Mind you now that, even though his Holyness has done a few things -according to some- to benefit the country, I'd say that in light of the above, COUPLED with an obscure and unknown fact (regarding outrageous state bond liquidations) and things will be looking much worse in a few years if things keep heading in the same direction. If anybody knows about how these things work (fiscally and economically) they get the picture. Whoever's in power between 2014 and 2020 will truly have their hands full trying to re-arm this jigsaw puzzle cuz they wont know what hit em. As everyone saw, everything operated the way it NORMALLY is SUPPOSED TO today: no idiot at the electric company pulling the plug on electricity; super efficient police and fire rescue on this day; the government actually caring about the ramifications of this strike by trying to buy the poor -giving 'em $27 million pesos worth of food (via the country's high level corporate players/corps, whom will somehow find a way to hit us with the bill when its all over and done! Now mind you, I have no complaints about paying duties and whatnot, but just because I can does that make it bearable? There are people who have to survive off of scraps as a result of this abusive political "doctrine...." <------------ Just some food for thought