LTFRB moves jeepney phaseout deadline to year-end 'in deference to Senate'
MANILA, Philippines — The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board is pushing to the end of the year the deadline for individual jeepney operators to join a cooperative or corporation or be barred from plying roads.
LTFRB chairperson Teofilo Guadiz III announced Wednesday that they will be issuing a new memorandum circular extending the jeepney phaseout deadline to December 31, 2023.
The regulator had previosuly required jeepney operators to consolidate their franchises under a cooperative or corporation for their jeepneys to be allowed on the road past that date, and even then only until December 31.
Transport groups that have been opposing the government program to replace traditional jeepneys with minibuses said the new units are too expensive to buy and have said they hold a week-long strike in protest.
The LTFRB’s announcement came amid a looming week-long transportation strike scheduled to start on Monday and a day before a Senate hearing on the government’s push to modernize public utility vehicles.
Guadiz denied that their decision was due to pressure from transport groups,claiming also that 90% of the transport sector is supportive of the plan to replace traditional jeepneys with minibuses, which drivers and operators said they would be hard pressed to afford without going into debt.
He said they moved the deadline "in deference" to the Senate resolution strongly urging the LTFRB to postpone the jeepney phaseout and the request of Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista "to allow the transport sector more time to consolidate."
Under the current PUV Modernization Program, operators must surrender their individual franchises for consolidation into a Fleet Management System, where cooperatives would have to purchase 15 imported minibuses per route.
According to PISTON, only large corporations would have the financial capacity to buy the 15 vehicles to operate a single route without being buried in debt.
Guadiz earlier said only 60% of the target number of vehicles for modernization have complied with the directive to consolidate franchises. — Xave Gregorio with a report from James Relativo
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