Cebu City prepares for ‘Beep’ pullout

CEBU, Philippines — The Cebu City government has started planning out to address the possible impact of the suspension of operations of the modern vehicle group Beep.

Councilor James Anthony Cuenco, who heads the council’s committee on transportation and communication, said that one of the things they are looking at is asking other cooperatives to fill in the vacated routes and assuring that there will be no vacuum of operations.

Cuenco said they immediately met with the Traffic Management Committee (TMC), right after Beep announced its intent to suspend its operations.

Cuenco said some groups of the transport cooperatives have assured that they have enough units to fill in the gap that will be vacated by Beep units, should they push through the ceasing of the operations.

“Since daghan sad nga mga units sad nila ang naka-standby so dili problema nga mo-fill-in sila as a matter of fact they welcomed the opportunity,” said Cuenco.

Cuenco also raised that it may take time for these spare units to fill the void considering that they would need to process the necessary permits in order for them to ply the different routes.

The TMC, however, assured that the special permits will be immediately granted.

“Dali ra kuno kaayo. Those special permits can be granted on those routes that have been vacated,” said Cuenco.

On the probability that their drivers and conductors will be losing their jobs, Cuenco said the TMC has also assured that they are willing to take in these displaced employees, but on the basis that they would qualify on the standards set for employment.

“So mura’g wala gyud tay problema as far as kaning taking over or having a temporary solution aning vacuum,” the councilor said.

He, however, said they still need to address the company’s concern that includes having more competitions, which Cuenco said is partly caused by the pending approval of the Local Public Transportation Route Plan (LPTRP).

In an earlier report, Beep reportedly has experienced ‘loss of income’ due to the pending requests for more routes to ply as a result of the effect of the ongoing civil works of the BRT project.

“Kay kung naa na gyuy klaro na LPTRP, ma-limited na ang number of units na mo-ply in a particular route, ma-defined na sya,” said Cuenco, who believed they could still come up with a definite solution to these concerns. —/GAN (FREEMAN)