Quick to increase, slow to decrease

Assuming for the sake of argument that the government is right to impose the increase in MRT/LRT fares, it is obviously also very timely to decrease jeepney, bus, UV and taxi fares. How come DOTC through its agencies are quick to increase fares, but slow to decrease?

World oil prices have been going down fast for over two months now and local oil prices have been going down as well. I checked with Petron the exact figure by which gasoline and diesel prices have gone down over the past year and this is the response: “Gasoline 93 RON P15.02/li, ADO P15.75. Period beginning 2014 until Jan. 6 2015.”

My, my, my! That’s a hefty decrease. I am sure our public transport rates have not gone down in proportion to the fuel price decreases and definitely, not in a timely manner. That’s because our DOTC bureaucrats do not have the interest of the riding public at heart.

Or maybe they are not too bright. They could have saved Malacanang a lot of heartache, and my good friend Sonny Coloma wouldn’t have to stretch the truth too much about the circumstances behind the MRT/LRT fare increase. Imagine how much LTFRB could have mitigated the MRT/LRT fare increases if they had also announced substantial decreases in jeepney, bus, UV and taxi fares?

And such fare decreases are immediately called for with the dramatic drop in oil prices. From over $100 a barrel at the beginning of last year, we ended last week with less than $50 a barrel and still falling.

I am sure the LTFRB guys will say that they cannot do anything because fare movements must be subjected to public hearings. But there has to be a quicker way of making our commuters benefit immediately from favorable world market conditions. It is called a provisional decrease. After all, this is the same tool used when LTFRB tells commuters that there is no choice but to raise fares when oil prices go up.

That’s the problem with most lawyers, specially those at DOTC. They cannot think out of the box. They are totally unimaginative, or they would be working in a reputable law firm.

I have long called for a matrix that would make fare movements automatically go up or down depending on some factors like fuel prices and the foreign exchange rate. When I was at the Ministry of Energy, we used what we call “a rule of thumb” that tells us by how much retail gasoline prices should go up or down depending on the per barrel cost of Dubai crude.

I have called for the institution of this matrix for public transport fares for quite a bit of time now, but no one at DOTC or LTFRB is listening, as usual. So I decided to engage the LTFRB chairman in a Twitter dialogue the other night. I didn’t get a response that gave me confidence he is on the ball.

I brought up the matrix proposal and he kept on responding that they have engaged UP to come up with the study for that matrix. Fine. But is there a timetable? When will UP deliver?

The LTFRB chairman kept on responding back that they are engaging UP’s National Center for Transportation Studies. My question about a timetable was ignored repeatedly. Then he admitted that they have yet to sign a MOA with UP. That means they are not going to get any matrix any time soon. UP has not even started work yet.

So what happens in the meantime? What can our harassed commuters expect from LTFRB? The chairman of LTFRB said they could do a provisional order to bring down fares. Exactly. But again, he couldn’t give me a timetable when this would happen.

Parang ang daya. Fuel prices have gone down by over P15 a liter, but fares have not gone down commensurately. That means the transport operators would continue to earn undue profits at the expense of the budget strapped commuters. Totally unfair and makes the government appear useless to the citizens.

That is P-Noy’s big problem. He has one useless branch of government called DOTC, unable to deliver needed infrastructure, indulges in self serving deals and fails to look out for commuters that the department is supposed to serve. In this digital age, reactions to developments must happen in real time.

This brings me to the Uber controversy. When I was in San Francisco, there were a number of times when my daughter found it better to hire Uber to bring us to dinner in restaurants in parts of SFO where parking is difficult.

My daughter explained that before she books a ride with Uber, she checks another similar service called Lyft. Sometimes the cost of the ride on Lyft is cheaper than Uber. The cost also varies with the time of day. Rides during rush hour are much more expensive than rides before or after rush hour. Makes sense. Demand for rush hour is high, traffic is slow, uses more fuel and reduces turn around time for the next passenger.

The beauty of this digital-based transport service is that the cost of the ride is market driven. They don’t depend on a sleeping or incompetent bureaucrat to set fare rates. Demand and supply determines what the rider will pay.

I realize the concept is too much for the limited brain capacity of our LTFRB regulators to understand. Otherwise, taxi or UV rates should also be at the very least, time based. Taxi rides should be cheaper during off hours when a long line of taxis are begging for passengers. This way, passengers will learn to time their trips to save money and also not contribute to rush hour madness.

Ok. I am sorry. I must have cause bureaucratic brains to spin with that proposal. Let us stick to what is simple and nothing is simpler than the need to bring down fares in line with fuel prices… and bring these down now. 

But unfortunately, commuters will just have to wait. According to the LTFRB chairman in his response to my Tweet, they will hear the petition for fare reduction of buses, UVs and taxis today and on Jan 14 for jeepneys. There is no commitment on when a “provisional” order to decrease will be issued.

Finally, a bit of good news. I just got word the Civil Aeronautics Board has revoked the permission for airlines to impose a fuel surcharge on domestic and international flights. This means lower ticket costs. 

Rappler estimates that the surcharge ranges from P200 ($4.44*) to P500 ($11.10) for domestic flights, but could go as high as P15,000 ($332.88) for international destinations.

Cancelled flights

Close to 300 flights of local carriers including PAL, Cebu Pacific and Tiger Air have been cancelled for the duration of the visit of Pope Francis. I love Pope Francis and his visit is an honor to the country, but should everything stop during the days he is in town?

Perhaps our officials could have been more creative. The airlines could have been asked to divert some or all of their Manila flights to Clark. Passengers from the Visayas and Mindanao with business in Manila shouldn’t have to cool their heels for the four days that the Pope is visiting.

Or, maybe it would also have been simpler and better for security if the Pope were to use Clark and just moved around by helicopter to where he has to be in Manila. This way, disruption at NAIA, our key gateway, would have been minimized.

Pope Francis is known for his simplicity and common touch and he will probably be horrified to learn how his visit would close down the country’s international airport, cause the declaration of non working holidays in the NCR and totally disrupt normal life.

I am a Catholic at the crossroads and it is the election of Pope Francis that has kept me from completely turning away from the Catholic Church. He has made it relevant to a poverty stricken country like ours. Based on what I have read of him, he will be very unhappy at the way we are treating his visit as if he was royalty. We should be able to properly secure him without diminishing the real purpose of his visit as the shepherd of Christ’s flock in our country.

I don’t know if it is too late, but some of those cancelled local and international flights should be asked to use Clark instead so that people with an urgent need to travel to and from the NCR may be able to do so. I am sure if bureaucrats just used their heads a bit more, using Clark would have been seen as more desirable than a total shutdown and cancellation of over 300 flights. Typical bureaucratic thinking… an oxymoron indeed.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco