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BY MAE SINGUAY
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Tuesday, February 28, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Public utility vehicles (PUVs) 15 years and older should be phased out, said Negros Occidental governor Alfredo G. Marañon Jr.
It is “necessary” if the Philippine transportation system must be modernized, the governor told the press yesterday.
Marañon attended the Police Regional Office 18’s celebration of the 26th Philippine National Police Foundation Day at the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office parade ground.
The event happened while transport groups from across Negros Island Region and other parts of the country were holding a strike to rally against the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) phaseout plan.
Protesting organizations urged the government to push for the rehabilitation of dilapidated PUVs instead.
Organizers claimed the transport strike “crippled around 98 percent” of the transportation grid in this capital city.
But authorities noted that only “around 60 percent” of PUVs joined and the activity reduced vehicular congestion by “only 20 percent.” (Related story on Negros, page 16)
Rehabilitating the PUVs would be “difficult,” Marañon said.
Jeepneys, while the “most popular” mode of transportation among Filipinos, are “inefficient,” he told reporters.
They are the primary cause of heavy vehicular traffic in Metro Manila and have been around since World War II, said Marañon.
The United Negros Drivers and Operators Center (Undoc) and the Pinag-isang Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Operators Nationwide, or Piston, announced the Monday transport strike on Friday last week.
DOTr secretary Arturo Tugade had been pushing for the phaseout since the Benigno Aquino administration, Undoc secretary-general Diego Malacad said.
Tugade submitted to Sen. Grace Poe a position paper on the plan because they could not push for presidential emergency powers to resolve traffic problems only in Metro Manila, Malacad claimed.
“Small operators and stakeholders will be affected,” he said, adding that the government should instead push for “vehicle rehabilitation.”
Malacad said they were also calling against oil deregulation and the proposed higher excise taxes on petroleum products. He said the latter could increase the price of crude oil to P6 by March 15.
Marañon criticized the Negros transport groups for including the oil price increase in their reasons for the strike.
Fluctuations in the prices of oil in the world market are “natural,” said the governor.
“The oil industry is volatile, and it’s natural for the prices of oil to go either up or down,” Marañon stressed.
The “modernization” plan became a hot issue starting July 2016, when the Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of two government orders on the phaseout and rejected petitions to declare them otherwise.
Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Order No. 2002-30 mandates the phaseout of 15-year-old buses, while Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board Resolution No. 2013-001 mandates the strict implementation of the DOTC order.
The DOTC was turned into the DOTr upon the creation of the Department of Information and Communication Technology.
According to the appellate court, the government’s police power to regulate PUVs in the interest of public safety is valid.
The DOTr then said they will implement the phaseout among jeepneys, taxis, and passenger and roll-on, roll-off vessels “next year,” or in 2017, to give operators more time to buy and replace their units./PN
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