Taxi operators withdraw fare hike petition

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippine National Taxi Operators Association has abandoned its petition for fare increase following a series of fuel price roll back.

The association requested the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board to archive their own petition. The LTFRB is expected to come out an official statement on the matter within the day.

Lawyer Manuel Iway, one of the LTFRB board members, said that the board will be forced to issue a status quo order on the taxi fare.

“We have no other recourse but to rule that there will be no fare increase considering that the petitioners no longer want it,” Iway said.

Iway said that the taxi fare hike petition was heard yesterday in Manila. But the lawyers for the petitioners opted to shelve their petition.

Taxi operators association nationwide filed on March 6 a petition seeking P10 increase in the flag down rate and P1 for every succeeding kilometer. Had the petition been granted, the flag down rate would have been P50 already while every kilometer would have been P4.50 instead of the current P3.50.

Richard Cabucos, president of the Metro Cebu Taxi Operators Association, said that they opted not to pursue their fare hike petition because the price of auto-liquefied petroleum gas has gone down already.

Cabucos said that the price of auto-LPG when they filed the petition was P47 per liter but it has now reduced to P36 per litter.

“We are happy nga niubos na ang presyo sa auto-lpg but the bad news is that we heard nga mo-increase daw ang presyo next week,” Cabucos said.

Several taxi drivers also preferred a status quo because an increase would only benefit the operators.

“Musaka ang pletehan pero dili man mi makapahimulos ana kay pasakaan man na dayon sa mga operators ang abangan. Maypa wala na lay increase para daghan manakay, (We will not benefit in the fare increase because the operators would normally increase the rental. It is better to have no increase because there will be more passengers)” Joel Darumba said.——(FREEMAN)