City ready for transport protest today

CEBU, Philippines - Militant transport group Piston or the Pinagkaisang Samahan  ng mga Tsuper at Operators Nationwide-Cebu will stage a protest today against some policies of the Department of Transportation and the Land  Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board.

Greg Perez, coordinator of PISTON-Cebu, said members will assemble 9 a.m. today at the St. Joseph Parish in Barangay Mabolo, Cebu City and then proceed to the LTFRB-7 office at the North Reclamation Area where a short program will be held.

Perez said the local protest is part of a nationwide transport action that decries the proposed policy of phasing out jeepneys aged 15 years old and above.

More or less a hundred of Piston-Cebu’s members are expected to temporarily stop plying their normal routes for a few hours today. However, Perez was quick to point out that their protest will last for not more than three hours.

The Cebu City government is not taking chances though.

Should there be a lack of public utility jeepneys, the city government will deploy Kaoshiung buses and barangay buses, according to Councilor David Tumulak, deputy mayor for police matters.

He said all city-owned vehicles will be readied to respond to stranded passengers. These augmentation vehicles will be deployed once it will be observed that the picket has crippled public transportation.

Tumulak will be monitoring the situation from the Command Control Center at the City Hall.

 "We respect the rights of these drivers, but we will assist the commuters if there are people nga ma-stranded because of the strike," Tumulak told  The FREEMAN over the phone last night.

LTFRB Chairman Martin Delgra already announced earlier that there will be no phaseout of jeepneys. Rather, he explained that they will only be replaced with brand new units to conform to the transport modernization plan of the government.

Perez said that if LTFRB's plan pushes through, chances are more than 50 percent of jeepneys in Cebu (around 11,000) alone will be off the streets.

LTFRB-7 Director Ahmed Cuizon earlier said that transport protests, for as long as they are peaceful, legal, and orderly, are part of the protesters’ constitutional rights.

Cuizon said he was not against any protest as long as it does not disrupt public transport services and intimidate non-protesting drivers into ceasing operations.

Last February, PISTON-Cebu joined its counterparts in Metro Manila for a nationwide strike over the same issue. — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon and Jean Marvette A. Demecillo (FREEMAN)