ILOILO City – The Committee on Transportation, Energy and Public Utilities of the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) has found Regulation Ordinance No. 2019-110 granting Megaworld Corp. the authority to establish and operate a transport hub at the Iloilo Business Park valid, final and executory.
The committee conducted a public hearing following the complaint filed by two city-based transport associations against the grant of provisional authority to Southwest Transport whose point-to-point (P2P) buses serve passengers from the Iloilo Airport to the Megaworld transport hub and vice versa.
“The operation of the Megaworld Transport Hub is clothed with legal color by virtue of Regulation Ordinance No. 2019-110. In Section 2 of the same ordinance, the transport hub shall be used exclusively for and limited only to UV Express, tourist and chartered vans and buses, and shuttle buses,” read part of the committee report prepared by committee chairman, Councilor Rommel Duron.
Such ordinance, it added, has binding effect, general application and presumed valid unless there is a contrary pronouncement from the proper authorities as to its invalidity or it is repealed or amended.
It is the interpretation of the committee that the term “buses” must necessarily include P2P Buses.
“To contend that the term ‘buses’ do not include P2P buses is not only be ridiculous but would even unduly limit the clear language or term used in the same ordinance,” said Duron.
In a petition, the New Iloilo Airport Transport Association (NIATA) and Association of Taxi Operators of Panay (ATOP) asked the SP to stop the operation of P2P buses of Southwest Transport as these supposedly violate the Iloilo City Perimeter Boundary Ordinance.
In his committee report, Duron cited an order (2015-018) issued by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) on the opening of premium point to point bus service to highly urbanized cities and one of those identified cities is Iloilo City.
“If you do not agree with the committee report…those who feel aggrieved, they can go to court and have the ordinance declared illegal or invalid,” said Duron./PN
