1Utak chairman bats for P12 minimum fare for public utility vehicles

Partly-list group United Transport Koalisyon (1-Utak) yesterday asked for government assistance to help drivers and operators of public utility vehicles cope with the increasing oil prices and the projected drop in passenger load.

1-Utak chairman lawyer Vigor Mendoza II said historically passenger load drops by as much as 30 percent when summer class vacation starts. If this is coupled by continued high cost of fuel, there will be no recourse but to increase transport fares.

Based on a straight line method of computation, a P12 minimum fare for jeepneys is not far-fetched. Such high transport cost is not also good for drivers as their children and other family members ride the public transport too, Mendoza said.

However, Mendoza added there is no cause to panic as they had been in this situation before and already submitted to the Department of Energy and the Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) the alternative actions to mitigate fare increases.

“This includes a review of the oil pricing mechanism, from replacement cost to inventory based pricing, assist transport groups to set up fuel stations of their own to avail themselves of bulk pricing, put a stop to colorum and out-of-line operations that eat up the income of legitimate franchise holders, streamline government processes in the registration of public utility vehicles, weed out “kotong” in the streets, use eVat windfall collections to assist operators to shift to cleaner and cheaper fuels, like liquefied petroleum gas, compressed natural gas, bio-methane and use the same funds for government to put up oil storage facilities in the provinces to reduce transshipment cost,” Mendoza added. –Daily Tribune