About that public hearing on ride sharing!

Yesterday I was watching with great interest the ANC live TV coverage on the House Hearing on Ride-Sharing Service where Rep. Vicente Veloso (Leyte) cited the 1987 Constitution and declared that Uber and Grab are committing criminal acts for operating without a franchise and he holds Land Transportation Franchising & Regulatory Board (LTFRB) Chairman Martin Delgra liable for neglecting their duty for allowing Uber and Grab to operate sans such a Franchise. Wow!

This is where the Philippine regulatory agencies are totally wrong when it based its regulations within the Constitution. But don’t get me wrong, the LTFRB is already neglecting every single day their constitutional duties by allowing the Habal-Habal motorcycle taxi to operate in almost all the provinces of the Philippines. In Mindanao it is called SkyLab, while I don’t know what they call it in Luzon. These modes of public transportation are operating without any LTFRB franchise and worse… no insurance for the passengers… not to mention that they are dangerous means of transportation for ordinary passengers. 

Rep. Edgar Sarmiento (Samar) said that we need to balance everything and admitted that it is a Market driven economy and he is correct. The main issue is… for Congress to find ways to adopt these new technologies for the convenience of the riding public who should have the freedom of choice in choosing what mode of transportation they would like to use for the price that they are willing to pay. The passenger should be the priority here!

Rep. Sarmiento did right when he said they would create a Technical Working Group (TWG) in order to rationalize this problem and accommodate new technologies. First order of business is for Congress to get rid of their antiquated laws requiring for Franchise for public convenience! LTFRB Chairman Martin Delgra said that they have an agreement in Cebu for taxicab operators to “Level up” and improve their service. This is something I would like to sit down with the Taxicab Operators in Metro Cebu.

Finally, I like the interpellation of Rep. Karlo Nograles (Davao) who pointed out that the public hearing was not to pin the blame on any group, but rather to find ways for everyone to sit down and work together. He mentioned that in Business school students are taught the various types of competitors, which allows everyone to live with each other. Let’s hope that this public hearing would allow new technologies to live with the old taxicab system that is already in place and make the taxicab serve the public better.

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While I still consider myself a staunch supporter of Pres. Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte, however there are policies that Pres. Duterte seems to be following which in my book doesn’t jive with his concept of shifting the nation to a Federal State from our broken unitary form of governance. I’m not sure whether Pres. Duterte was serious in his recent message for the Buwan ng Wikang Pambansa (National Language) or that his speechwriters merely put that speech before his eyes. But when Pres. Duterte said “The role of the Filipino language in national unity has enabled Filipinos to hurdle several challenges during his first year in office.”

It makes me wonder what challenges is Pres. Duterte talking about? Perhaps he is one of those people who bought; hook, line and sinker the old Marcosian thought that was his battle cry throughout the Martial Law years, dubbed “Isang Bansa, Isang Diwa!” My group dubbed Defenders of Indigenous Languages of the Archipelago (DILA) do not believe that one language promotes National Unity. Lest we have forgotten, it is politics that causes division in a country. Our best example is found next door in the Korean Peninsula where it is divided between the Communist North and the Democratic South Korea. Do you see any unity amongst the Koreans?

Again, let me remind you that the American Civil War that killed five million Americans showed to the world that language does not unite people. So what does Pres. Duterte want for the Filipino people? That we become Tagalog speakers even if we were not born in that tongue? Because Filipino ultra nationalists pushed for the Tagalog Language disguised as Filipino, it is a fact that the Philippines is fast losing its advantage in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Industry one of the main economic drivers of the country and this is an industry that we cannot afford to lose!

Mind you, the millions of Filipinos who find work abroad and remit billions of dollars back home annually were not hired because they spoke Filipino or other Filipino languages…but because of their ability to speak in English. In my book the Buwan ng Wika should promote all spoken languages of the Philippines, not just Tagalog that the ultra-nationalists tried to reinvent, but in truth Filipino is 99.9% Tagalog! Let’s stop this deception!

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Email:  [email protected] or vsbobita@gmail.com.