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Nation

Bacolor jeepney drivers reduce fare from P9 to P7.50

- Ding Cervantes -
BACOLOR, Pampanga— While drivers and commuters nationwide are complaining over the recent increase in transport fares, jeepney drivers plying the route between the City of San Fernando and this town have reduced the fare from P9 to only P7.50.

This was after the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) computed that the correct fare between the two towns should only be P7.50.

Jeepney drivers, who had been charging passengers P9 in the last three years, are surprisingly not complaining.

Municipal Councilor Nilo Caballa said the P9 fare was imposed by the jeepney drivers themselves, who were among the few to ply the route after the town was buried by lahar flows after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991.

When lahar flows ceased some three years ago, however, local folk gradually rebuilt their homes and this inspired some jeepney drivers to resume the route.

Caballa said that the P9 fare was supposed to cover the route from San Fernando to Guagua town, but because the roads then were still not rehabilitated, the drivers imposed a flat rate of P9 for all their passengers.

A new road, however, was built on top of the lahar, which buried the old highway from San Fernando up to Guagua through the efforts of third district Rep. Oscar Rodriguez, who won in the last elections as mayor of San Fernando, and reelected Mayor Buddy Dungca.

Dungca said new cement road network in the downtown area is finished.

Some 35 percent of the local original population of a little over 100,000 have also returned to rebuild new homes. Some farmers have even started cultivating their farms.

Homes and business establishments in Bacolor town were buried under several meters of lahar. Four years ago, however, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology declared that serious lahar threat from Mt. Pinatubo had already ceased.

"We have returned to normal but there is still much work to do," Dungca said, noting that all 21 barangays in his town are now again populated.

Many local folk who fled from lahar flows, however, have stayed elsewhere in government-developed resettlement areas where the government has already given them their houses and lots for free.

Dungca said, however, that lahar has increased the town‘s elevation and flooding is no longer experienced in the town. With Ric Sapnu

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO

DUNGCA

GUAGUA

LAHAR

LAND TRANSPORTATION FRANCHISING AND REGULATORY BOARD

MAYOR BUDDY DUNGCA

MT. PINATUBO

MUNICIPAL COUNCILOR NILO CABALLA

OSCAR RODRIGUEZ

PHILIPPINE INSTITUTE OF VOLCANOLOGY AND SEISMOLOGY

SAN FERNANDO

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