Unless fuel price falls below P30/Liter Transport group: No fare rollback

CEBU - Unless the price of diesel plunges below P30 per liter and the government ensures stability in petroleum price, transport groups vowed to oppose any move for a fare rollback.

Cebu Integrated Transport Services Cooperative (CITRASCO) vice chairman Ryan Benjamin Yu said they would only consider any fare reduction once the price of diesel reduces back to P28 per liter.

Diesel, which is used by most public utility jeepneys in the country, is now pegged at P54 per liter.

Despite the series of oil price cuts, PUJ drivers and operators in Cebu claim that the current petroleum price is not enough reason for the government to implement a fare reduction.

Earlier, the central office of Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board had announced that if the oil price rollback will continue, there is a “possibility” that fares will also go down.

Yu said during the time when they asked for a P1.50 additional increase in Cebu, diesel still costs P35 per liter.

He explained that fuel price reached P45 per liter before they amended their original P1.50 additional fare petition to P2.50.

With these, Yu said, it is mathematically not reasonable to reduce the fare.

“Besides, we did not ask for additional fare only because the price of oil increased. There are lots of factors we considered like the increase in the price of basic goods and commodities,” he said.

Transport groups fret over fare reduction when there is no guarantee from the government that oil price will stabilize after a series of rollbacks.

Yu said unless the government can assure the transport sector that oil price is stabilizing, they might agree for a fare reduction, but as to how much is yet to be determined.

“But I don’t think the government has control over these companies,” Yu said, referring to the oil firms in the country.

Petitions for fare reduction are immediately granted by LTFRB while requests for increase take a long time to be approved, Yu claimed.

He said they don’t want to take the risk to allow for a fare rollback because it is still highly possible that oil price will increase again.

If a fare reduction would be granted now, he admitted they might have a hard time to ask for a fare increase once fuel prices will go up once again, citing their past experiences.

Yu said the transport sector is just beginning to recover its losses from the past oil price increases. “It is not justifiable to reduce the fare and deprive our drivers the chance to recover from their losses just because of petty rollbacks.”

CITRASCO believes that a fare reduction is not a feasible solution to help the riding public cope with the rising prices of commodities.

“We don’t want high fare rate, but we are left with no choice because if we don’t demand for it, our families will suffer from difficulty. We will oppose any move to reduce the fare,” Yu said.

For their part, LTFRB-7 public information officer Eugenio Ibo said if their Manila office grants a fare reduction, they could not do anything except to follow the order.

Ibo said so far, their office has not received any petition for a fare reduction.

Metro Cebu Taxi Operators’ Association president Richard Cabucos said they are willing to scrap the P10 add-on in the taxi fare if the cost of liquefied petroleum gas will be reduced to below P30 per liter.

Cabucos said if oil companies continue to cut LPG prices, they might leave the add-on sticker void since its provisions are just temporary. — /LPM (THE FREEMAN)