Taxi - a business in jeopardy?
Whether I go to destinations like our law office or the University of the Visayas where I teach Constitutional Law, I have found more comfort in riding taxis than driving cars. In these trips, I also discovered distinct advantages I previously overlooked. At other times too, I yielded to my vanity as I suppressed the joy taking cabs in favor of the bragging rights of driving a Mercedes Benz.
This is the first advantage. Old men like me find the extraordinary diligence needed to maneuver automobiles through narrow roads very stressful. There is no such stress when we ask taxi drivers to bring us to our destinations. We just get seated, give our destination and do not get exasperated over the recklessness of other drivers. We sometimes even doze off.
Second. Engaging cabbies in discussions is educational. Many do not have college diplomas but they astound me. Some of them express opinions in more logical and persuasive ways than some professionals I know.
Third. Considering there are reportedly 8,000 taxis operating in Metro Cebu, with majority being driven by partnering chauffeurs, there may be about 10,000 taxi drivers hereabouts. Their number is not really big in proportion to the population but in their casual interaction with passengers, they can be influential factors in buttressing public opinion. How then do we translate my random and unscientific findings that of 10 cab drivers who voted for President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016, about seven of them have expressed regrets? What impact do they carry when they share sentiments with passengers?
I am afraid the future of taxi driving as a profession and the business of operating taxi cabs is rather uncertain. This apprehension is anchored on the possible impact of the new taxi fares. Consider this; the average fare I paid from my home to school before the new tariff was about P100. So, for four trips, my daily expense was about P400. Each of my last trips with newly-recalibrated meters cost P150. It does not need mathematical genius to conclude that in so far as my trips are concerned, the increase in my fares is 50 percent. From P400 daily then, I now spend P600. In a 26-day computation, I have to increase my budget from a little more than P10,000 to almost P16,000. That difference will now force me to drive my cars.
How many of our countrymen allocated a kind of fund for taxi trips like I did before the new tariff? I have to assume our number is critical. In Cebu City alone, there are close to 700,000 voters. What if one percent or 7,000 are so affected like me that they decide like I do? An added monthly budget of P6,000 is, for us, quite daunting. It is foreseeable they would rather drive or ride the jeepney or "habal-habal." That's 7,000 people who will no longer ride cabs. And that is a daily figure!
With a much-reduced number of passengers, there will possibly be an oversupply of cabs and consequently reduced income for drivers. I am worried that when taxi drivers abandon their jobs in favor of other means of livelihood, taxi operators will also suffer such that they may reduce their fleets. As the millennials say, OMG!
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