MANILA, Philippines - The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board may decide this week the fate of the fare hike petitions filed by jeepney operators.
But this early, LTFRB board member Manuel Iway said an increase is unlikely.
“Malabo nga ma-grant ang ilang petition,” Iway said in an interview with The FREEMAN yesterday.
Iway said the 50- centavo provisional increase granted by the board last month is already enough.
Despite Iway’s statement, Ryan Benjamin Yu, fare hike petitioner and chairman of the Cebu Integrated Transport Service Multi-purpose Cooperative, is still optimistic that LTFRB will grant their petition to increase the current jeepney minimum fare by P1.50.
But with the granting of the 50-centavo provisional increase, CITRASCO and other jeepney operators expect an additional P1 making the fare P9, if approved.
Yu is confident that their petition will be granted as they have documents and data to back up their fare hike petition, unlike LTFRB who has no basis in granting the 50-centavo provisional increase.
Yu added that the Pantawid Pasada cards that are being banked on by the board are not enough to compensate the income loss incurred by the jeepney drivers and operators.
The Aquino administration has been giving out Pantawid Pasada cards as an interim measure of the government to cushion the impact of high fuel prices, specifically among public utility jeepneys.
The Department of Energy is tasked to implement this program. For the first tranche jeepney drivers receive P1,050 and for the second tranche P1,200. Both amounts are pre-loaded on the said cards.
Land Transportation Office-7 regional director Raul Aguilos said that for the first tranche, of the 11,666 Pasada Cards intended for the region’s PUJ drivers, only 7,920 were given since November of last year.
The remaining 3,000 cards were already returned to DOE.
No records were available yet as to how many drivers already received the cards for the second tranche.
The Pantawid Pasada Cards are given out to beneficiaries at no cost.
It can be recalled that President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III issued Executive Order No. 32 or the so-called Pantawid Pasada program as fuel assistance for jeepney drivers.
Yu and other transport groups have been appealing to the riding public for compassion and understanding with regards to their petition.
LTFRB-7 has yet to forward to their Central Office the minutes of the fare hike public hearing that was held last April 11.
Zambales Rep. Mitos Magsaysay cited the oil price hike as the root of all the rising cost of basic commodities, including operators asking for fare increase, thus the law behind it, the Oil Price Deregulation Law must be amended.
Magsaysay said that law has to be amended but the amendment must be proposed among the stakeholders.
She said that stakeholders, especially the transport sector, must be consulted on which provisions of the said law needs to be repealed or not.
“It is useless to make a bill that is not acceptable to the stakeholders. Legislators must legislate laws that are needed by the people and not what the latter needs,” said Magsaysay in her visit to Cebu recently.
She said the government can reduce excise taxes on fuel if it has the willpower to do it, especially when prices of fuel in the world market decreased. —/BRP (FREEMAN)