A Boracay-based retiree by the name of Spencer Anderson wrote The Freeman (Opinion, Page 14, January 19, 2011) to complain about the shabby treatment he got from, by his account, quite a number of taxi drivers in Cebu.
Anderson was in Cebu and Bohol for a visit, but had no complaints about our neighboring province. He had a lot of beef, however, against Cebu’s taxi drivers, which in effect is a beef against Cebu itself.
Anderson recounted arriving in Cebu from Bohol and wanting to be taken to his hotel in Mactan but was met instead by a phalanx of brusque and brazen extortionists masquerading as taxi drivers demanding flat rates many times over the usual fares or refuse conveyance.
Needless to say, we Cebuanos know fully well what Anderson was griping about. Cebuanos have been living with this sad experience for years. Why they choose to do almost nothing about it does not jibe with their own aggressive pitch for tourists.
Cebuanos love to brag about Cebu being one of the best tourism destinations not only in the country but in this part of the world. And yet, for all this trumpeting, nobody seems willing to take the problem of taxi drivers by the horn.
Taxi drivers prey not only on tourists, they prey on everybody, particularly shoppers. At least some of the big malls have taken steps to help solve the problem by writing down the taxi numbers and other info that their shoppers take in going home.
But this is not enough, especially since it is not actually the job of the malls to protect people once they leave their premises. If there is anybody that should seize the bull by the horns, it is the government itself.
The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board is one of two lead agencies directly concerned with this problem, the other being the Land Transportation Office. These two agencies should solve this problem once and for all.
The new head of the LTFRB, Ahmed Cuizon, should be particularly active in this because he knows precisely what the problem is all about. Cuizon is a former mediaman and one time official at the Mactan Cebu International Airport. He knows what the problem is all about.