Roxas suspends award of bus franchises

MANILA, Philippines - Transportation and Communications Secretary Mar Roxas suspended yesterday an order that awarded 489 choice provincial bus franchises of the defunct Pantranco to companies owned by a single bus-owning family in Luzon.

The award by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) has been described as “illegal, hasty and brazen” and a direct assault on the integrity program of the Aquino administration.

The suspension will freeze all action on the award, including the efforts of the five awardees – all companies owned by the Hernandez family – to register, then run, buses using the 489 franchises.

Roxas said he will review the legality of the award made by the LTFRB that covered 489 choice lines of a long-defunct bus company, the Pantranco North Express Inc., which went under in the late 80s.

The awardees of the suspended franchises are Pangasinan Five Star, Bataan Transit, Victory Liner, Cisco Lines and First North Luzon, all owned by members of the Hernandez family, the largest and most dominant bus operator in the Luzon area. Five Star, Victory and Bataan Transit were said to have previously opposed the revival of the Pantanco lines.

Before the award was made to them, the Hernandez companies, according to LTFRB legal files, registered their vigorous opposition to the sale of the franchises on the grounds that the franchises had long expired and these lines can neither be sold nor transferred to other parties.

North and Central Luzon bus operators who filed their opposition to the award praised Roxas for his suspension order and his directive to review the suspended franchises. The operators said they are deeply grateful to Roxas for the promptness of his action.

“The review will be the great unraveling. It would provide the DOTC probers with lurid details on what led to the wholesale grant of 489 franchises – which has never done in the 25-year history of the LTFRB – to a single bus-owning family at that and during the peak of the public attention on the impeachment trial,” the oppositors to the award said.