Tugade, transport execs dared to commute for 30 days
FORMER Senator Nikki Coseteng has challenged Department of Transportation (DoTr) Secretary Arturo Tugade to a P2 million bet to take daily public transport in 30 days to determine the magnitude and seriousness of the public transport woes.
Addressing a forum, Coseteng, who once chaired the Senate committee on public services, which covered public transport, said her P2 million bet covered not only Tugade but other transport officials, who seemed oblivious of the repercussions of what she regarded erratic transport policies that have been adversely affecting the riding public.
In the same forum, transport planner Robert Siy and activist Dom Hernandez joined Coseteng to assail the proliferation of an undetermined number of illegal vehicles called “colorums” and batted to allow public buses to ply EDSA and the routes between Metro Manila and the provinces.
By drastically reducing the number of legitimate buses to ply Metro Manila and the provinces and allowing the illegal vehicles to take over the buses’ routes and charge exorbitant fares, the riding public has been suffering, Coseteng said.
Coseteng said the buses that ply their provincial routes are now down to 10 percent of the bus fleet of legitimate bus firms, creating a demand for illegal vehicles, which have no contribution to the government because they operate as part of the underground economy.
Coseteng noted that law enforcers were arresting legitimate provincial buses along Mindanao Avenue, imposing what she regarded an “unjust fine of P1 million per bus.” These buses are doing legitimate business to serve the public and yet they are made to suffer due to the policy to compel buses to use the central bus terminals, which are out of the way and have no facilities for passengers and drivers.
As the “pandemic endgame” nears by the vaccination of majority of the people, Hernandez, first nominee of Pasada Party List, said provincial buses should be allowed to drive through EDSA again because this was a way to ease the transport problems.
He found an ally in Siy, who explained the need to use higher-capacity vehicles and public transport in all major roads in preparation for the economic recovery. Siy is also a part of the Move As One Coalition which is “a coalition of Filipino organizations and individuals advocating for a safer, more humane, and more inclusive public transportation system in the Philippines.”
Siy asked the government instead to come out with public policies to encourage the public to take public transport because buying and owning cars is not the solution to the transport issues.
Only five percent of all households nationwide have cars, while 8.5% have vehicles in Metro Manila, Siy said. The idea of using sidewalks to park cars is not acceptable, he said, because it could lead to other problems.
“The progress and wealth of a country is not determined when the poor have cars but when the rich ride buses,” Hernandez said.
