‘King of the road’

The voice of reason coming from the soft-spoken Department of Transportation (DOTr) Secretary Jaime Bautista got drowned in the loud howls of protests from public utility jeepney (PUJ) drivers and operators in the strike they staged earlier this week. The protesting militant groups of PUJ drivers and operators succeeded in getting the government to act on their plaints.

By paralyzing such major means of public transport services through protest action, the strikers now believed they were able to block for now, if not delay again, their feared “phase out” of the “iconic” passenger vehicle.

The hullaballoo all started after the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) reminded about the June 30 deadline for application to the “consolidation” of franchises to qualify to the government’s jeepney modernization program. The LTFRB is one of the 20 attached agencies at the DOTr headed by Bautista.

The LTFRB subsequently soft-pedaled on their announcement and went on the extra length to extend again the deadline to Dec. 31, 2023. But it was too late to stop the groundswell of protests against the “phase out” which is really the end game of this government jeepney modernization program.

A few hours before Bautista spoke in our Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum, Malacanang announced that the leaders of protesting jeepney groups and reached an agreement to cut short their weeklong strike on a condition of holding more dialogues on the controversial PUV modernization program.

Secretary Cheloy Garafil issued this announcement via official Twitter account of the Presidential Communications Office (PCO). “We had an agreement that the government of President Bongbong Marcos would listen to their issues... Their problem, according to them, is it seemed that the lines of communication were cut and there were speculations so they were confused so they staged a strike,” Garafil disclosed.

Incidentally, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) first appointed Garafil as LTFRB chairperson before later named as PCO Secretary. Teofilo Guadiz took over from her as the LTFRB chairman.

In a video released by the PCO, Mar Valbuena, chairman of transport group Manibela apologized to commuters affected by the strike. According to him, the MANIBELA and PISTON groups have decided to end the transport strike and accepted the government’s offered dialogues to discuss their objections to the scheduled implementation of the modernization program.

Although he was not present in that meeting at Malacanang, Bautista is not making an issue of his being left out of the initial talks with the protesting PUJ groups. In fact, Bautista renewed his invitation and offer with the leaders and representatives of various PUJ organizations. He reassured them he is willing to meet and sit down with them to talk about their respective concerns or complaints and other transport issues they want the DOTr and the rest of the government to address.

“Actually, we never recommended the immediate phase out of PUJs,” Bautista cited. But the DOTr Secretary admitted the PUJ phase out “is one of the last” in the many components of the modernization program.

“(But) We really need to phase out and not allow the use of (PUJ) units that are not roadworthy and must comply with the Philippine Safety Standards,” the DOTr Secretary stressed.

But lacking clarity and use of highfalutin terms, the LTFRB deadline reminder fueled the call to all affected PUJ drivers and operators to stage one-week “strike” to denounce what the militants contrived as the start of “phase out” of their means of livelihood. The DOTr Secretary conceded there might have been obvious lapses in the government’s communications.

For one, what does “consolidation” means?

At the Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum, Bautista explained it simply means all jeepneys, buses, multicabs and other public utility operators and drivers must apply for their franchise from the LTFRB under either cooperative or corporate set-up. As of the latest LTFRB inventory of 180,000 franchises it issued, Bautista noted, 60 percent have already applied for consolidation.

This was why the deadline was extended to accommodate the 40 percent remaining PUV operators and drivers who have yet to apply for “consolidation.” Once they apply, he pointed out, they will be qualified to avail of the government subsidy under the 10-point public utility vehicle (PUV) modernization program.

Offhand, Bautista clarified, the deadline to start implementing this program has been extended three times already in the past by the DOTr even before the Marcos administration. The March 30 deadline this year was set during the previous LTFRB, he pointed out, and this was merely extended to June 30 when the Marcos administration took over. The latest deadline by the end of this year is the fourth extension already, he quipped.

As far as PBBM sees it, the latest extension of the deadline is fair enough to all concerned. “I think that is enough time for us to fix the system of inspecting and replacing the jeepneys of our transport workers,” the Chief Executive urged.

But the problem, as PBBM concluded, is the borrowing of money to buy a new or modern PUJ unit so that they won’t lose their source of livelihood and add to the swelling ranks of jobless people in our country.

According to Bautista, government banks’ offer of five percent borrowing rate “is not that high” for those availing the Special Package for Environment Friendly and Efficiently Driven Public Utility Vehicles (SPEED PUV) Program. As of January, the state bank has issued P6.9 billion worth of loans to 144 transport cooperatives and corporations nationwide.

Bautista also cited an applicant can get as much as P160,000 subsidy for each unit of new and more roadworthy modern built jeepney units using efficient and environment-friendly Euro-4 diesel as fuel. He hopes to get bigger budget to increase this subsidy to at least P260,000.

But for now, our legacy jeepneys will remain to be the king of the road.