Transport group to question ‘unfair’ order in court

CEBU, Philippines - One of the biggest transport cooperatives in the Visayas is set to file a case next week against three government transportation agencies to question some portions of the Joint Administrative Order 2014-01 implemented last July 19.

Ryan Benjamin Yu, president and general manager of the Cebu Integrated Transport Service Multi-purpose Cooperative, said that he will file the case as they sense that the government agencies have already decided and remained deaf on their suggestions, this despite of the “Transport Dialogue” held in Cebu last week.

“Mo-file gyud mi og kaso kay among nakita nga sirado na gyud ilang huna-huna. We have no other recourse but to go to the court,” Yu said yesterday.

Yu said they will question the provision that says “operators are being penalized for the fault of their drivers,” a provision they believed as unfair and unreasonable.

Several transport groups in Cebu were on the brink of staging a metro-wide transport strike last July 21 and 22 to protest the administrative order, but this was averted when DOTC Secretary Jun Abaya ordered that the JAO be reviewed two days before the schedule of the strike.

JAO 20014-01 contained the revised schedule of fines and penalties for violation of laws, rules and regulations governing land transportation.

During their “Transport Dialogue,” transportation leaders in Cebu were unanimous in their sentiment that operators should not be held automatically liable when their drivers commit road violations, including travelling out of line, overcharging of passengers and condoning passengers not wearing seatbelts.

Yu said they are against this provision because offenses on the road are already out of the operator’s control.

“These are all beyond the control of the operator. If a driver commits these violations, operators should be spared,” he said.

Aside from Yu, other transport leaders from jeepney groups, bus groups, taxi groups, truckers groups and vehicles-for-hire groups attended the dialogue and aired their sentiments and suggestions.

For one, Romeo Armamento, the national vice president of the National Confederation of Transport workers Union, suggested that fines and penalties for traffic violations should be lowered.

Winston Ginez, chairman of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, said they will take the suggestions into consideration but emphasized that operators should make a conscious effort to ensure that their drivers will not commit violations.

He said LTFRB will evaluate and study the suggestions carefully in coming up with guidelines, which will be incorporated in the JAO in question. He also said that public utility vehicles found traveling out of line were given amnesty until October 17, 2014 to have their vehicles registered with the LTFRB.

LTO Executive Director Emiliano Bantog Jr. pointed out that since JAO 2014-01 was implemented last July 19, traffic violations have decreased in a nationwide scale.

“Talagang nag-decreased yung traffic violations on a nationwide scale maybe because takot na yung mga drivers and we have calibrated our enforcement,” Bantog said.

The JAO aims to instill discipline especially among drivers of public utility vehicles, prevent road accidents, ease the perennial traffic jams, clamp down on unregistered or “colorum” vehicles, among others and was jointly implemented by the Department of Transportation and Communication, LTO and LTFRB.  (FREEMAN)