Taxi fare drop petition filed

CEBU, Philippines - After the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board dismissed the fare hike petition filed by the different taxi operators nationwide, it was the turn of a consumer group to file a petition for the reduction of taxi fare.

LTFRB board member Manuel Iway said yesterday that the National Council for Consumer Protection, Inc. filed a petition last Friday seeking to reduce taxi fare from the current P40 to P30 for the first 500 meters.

Aside from the reduction of the flagdown rate, the group also asked for the reduction of the rate for the succeeding meters from the current P3.50 for every 300 meters to P2.50 for every 300 meters.

Iway, who is from Cebuano, said they will hear the petition on June 24, 2012.

“We will decide the petition before the end of the month,” Iway said as he opted not to comment on whether or not the petition is meritorious as it still has to be heard.

According to the consumer group, there is a continued decline in the prices of fuel especially the auto-liquefied petroleum gas, which is now widely used among taxi operators in their taxis all over the country.

The FREEMAN tried to contact Metro Cebu Taxi Operators Association President Richard Cabucos on this issue but he was unavailable as of press time.

MCTOA together with other taxi association in the country opted to archive their petition to increase taxi fare from P40 to P50 for the flagdown and another P1 for the succeeding 300 meters, after prices of auto-LPG continued to decrease.

The price of auto-LPG when taxi operators filed their petition last March reached P47 per liter but has now gone down to P34 per liter. 

Meanwhile, major oil player Petron Corp. and independent oil firms Total Philippines Corp., Seaoil Philippines Inc. and Phoenix Petroleum Corp. have implemented big rollbacks in the prices of petroleum products.

The four oil firms slashed prices of premium gasoline by P2.05 per liter and regular gasoline by P2.50 per liter.

They also rolled back diesel price by P1.90 per liter and kerosene by P2.10 per liter.

“This is to reflect the reduction in international fuel prices,” Petron said.

This is the tenth consecutive weekly price rollback.

Shell, Filoil and Unioil Petroleum Philippines Inc. earlier announced a P1.50 to P2 per liter price rollback.

But Petron, Seaoil, Total and Phoenix Petroleum brought down fuel prices by another 40 to 50 centavos per liter following oil price reduction in the world market.

“Oil prices continue to go down due to the weak economy of the US and China that are the prime movers of oil prices,” Energy Undersecretary Jose Layug Jr. said.

There have been 10 price increases and 13 price rollbacks recorded by the Department of Energy since the start of the year.

As of June 4, net increase was P1.13 per liter for gasoline, while net decrease for diesel was P1.36 per liter since the start of the year, DOE data showed.  (FREEMAN)