Remains of Simbulan cremated

MANILA, Philippines -  The remains of journalist and University of the Philippines professor Lourdes “Chit” Estella-Simbulan were cremated at Arlington Funeral Homes in Quezon City yesterday morning.

The night before the cremation, colleagues at the UP College of Mass Communication and former students, some of whom are now practicing journalists, paid tribute to the departed professor.

Aside from being a practicing journalist, Simbulan also taught at the UP CMC.

Simbulan’s husband, Prof. Roland Simbulan, said he thought he already knew everything about his wife until he heard the good things said by her colleagues, friends and students about Chit.

The couple was going to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary on Oct. 4.

“What really attracted me to Chit is that Chit was a very gentle person and yet she had an inner strength and a very consistent one,” Roland said.

“She tried to use the (journalism) craft to contribute to society, to make it a better place,” he said.

Chief Superintendent George Regis, director of the Quezon City Police District, said a police team failed to arrest bus driver Daniel Espinosa at his house in Taytay, Rizal.

Espinosa was the driver of the speeding Universal Guiding Star Line bus that rammed last Friday night the taxicab that Simbulan was riding in.

Simbulan died after the accident along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City.

Espinosa fled and went into hiding after the incident and is now being hunted by police.

Regis said a neighbor of Espinosa provided information that the driver and his wife had packed their bags and planned to escape and hide in their hometown in Davao.

He said the couple was not at the house when the policemen arrived yesterday morning.

Espinosa is facing charges of reckless imprudence resulting to homicide and damage to property and abandonment of one’s own victim that were filed at the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office.

The Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) had released to the public Espinosa’s photograph and offered a P100,000 reward for anybody who could provide information that would lead to the driver’s arrest.

In a related development, a special team of personnel from the government was created last Monday to track and apprehend reckless drivers along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City and Edsa.

The group is composed of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Action Center, the Land Transportation Office (LTO), the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), and the Philippine National Police Highway Patrol Group Tagged “Running After Speeding Vehicles (RASV),” the combined forces of transportation authorities will catch and penalize reckless public and private drivers who are speeding and swerving.

Fixed salary for bus drivers

The government is now looking at the proposal to adopt a fixed salary rate for drivers of commuter buses to curb the spate of accidents involving speeding buses in Metro Manila.

Nicon Fameronag, Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Communication Office director, said the Bus Transport Industry Tripartite Council (BTITC) would convene today to discuss the proposed fixed income for bus drivers.

“The BTITC chaired by the DOLE’s Metro Manila regional director would meet and hopefully come out with a position that they would submit before Congress,” Fameronag disclosed.

Fameronag said the government might adopt the new scheme through the enactment of a pending bill providing for a fixed monthly compensation for passenger bus drivers and conductors.

He said that in the past meetings, the council discussed issues concerning the bus industry, including continuing education, safety and health, rest hours and fixed wage for bus drivers.

The compensation of most bus drivers and conductors is based on their percentage of bus tickets sold to passengers, so the more passengers they pick up the more tickets they sell.

MMDA chairman Francis Tolentino said if Metro Manila bus drivers receive fixed salaries from operators, they have no reason anymore to drive faster and aggressively engage other bus drivers in a race for passengers.

“If they will get (fixed) salaries, they will drive more carefully and will not anymore race with other bus drivers for passengers,” said Tolentino.

Tolentino would meet this morning bus operators in Quezon City and he would reiterate his proposal to provide fixed salaries to drivers that would help reduce bus accidents, especially at the 12.4-kilometer Commonwealth Avenue, dubbed by the MMDA as the “killer highway” of the metropolis because of various fatal accidents in the area.

Tolentino said today’s meeting with the bus operators will also be attended by representatives from the Department of Labor and Employment.

Meanwhile, aside from his proposal to have fixed salaries for bus drivers, Tolentino is also pushing his proposal that metro bus companies source their drivers from a pool of drivers who are trained and certified by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).

He said bus operators would fund the TESDA training pool for drivers.

Fameronag said some of the bus companies favor the adoption of fixed salary for bus drivers and conductors while other companies are strongly against it.

If bus drivers would receive a fixed monthly salary, proponents of the measure said they would no longer be rushing to get additional passengers, thus accidents can be avoided. – With Mayen Jaymalin, Rainier Allan Ronda, Mike Frialde, Evelyn Macairan