Former Pantranco employees face another long wait for claims

MANILA, Philippines - Over 2,000 employees are facing another long wait for the settlement of their labor claims from the defunct Pantranco North Express Inc. (PNEI) as the sale of franchises awarded to them is being questioned.

The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) had awarded the bus franchise to the former employees as payment for their back wages.

The employees, in turn, sold the franchise after the National Labor Relations Commission ruled that their claims were valid.

But competing bus operators opposed the sale, claiming the Pantranco franchise was no longer legitimate, prompting Transportation Secretary Manuel Roxas II to review the LTFRB ruling and order the suspension of the sale of the bus franchises.

Romy Alfonso and Jun Pascua, presidents of the Pantranco Retrenched Employees Association (PANREA) and Pantranco Employees Association (PEA), respectively, said government agencies continue to disregard the awarding of franchises to them even as the Supreme Court upheld the NLRC ruling in their favor.

“The 2,000 employees represented by us took the pains of bidding for the franchises if only to ensure that they were not taken away from us like other properties in the past,” Alfonso said.

“We are deeply hurt by allegations in media perpetrated obviously by opposing bus companies – that ours is a ‘sob story’ of ‘supposed uncompensated workers’,” Alfonso said.

“We fought for our rights for almost three decades only to have, not only our rights and claims questioned, but also our dignity and existence. If only we could take everyone back in time to see all the challenges we have undergone, and the heartbreaks that we have encountered,” Alfonso said.

“If only we can bring them to resting places of each and every member of our unions who have passed away without even seeing a single centavo of our award.”

Pascua, for his part, said that the workers were only fighting to get their just compensation.

“The crux of the issue remains to be social justice,” Pascua said.

“As we said before, most of us are already in our twilight years. More than a few of us have already passed away without seeing our dreams come to fruition. The sale of the otherwise valid and subsisting franchises brings us one step closer to that dream,” Pascua said.

“For us, it is not just about our livelihood, but our very lives. For the bus operators opposing the legitimate sale of the franchises, it is merely about the possibility of losing territory and profits. We deserve a rightful satisfaction of our claims. We deserve justice.”

Despite the controversy, Pantranco workers are still hopeful that the awarding to them of the bus franchises and their sale of the franchises to the best buyer would be resolved.

They said they are counting on the assurance of the Department of Transportation and Communications that what it had ordered previously was only a review of the franchise’s status, and not its cancellation.

This assurance, they said, was given by DOTC Undersecretary for Operations Rafael Santos during a meeting with them earlier this month.

Before the meeting, the PANREA and PEA held a rally in front of the DOTC office to protest what they perceived as bias on the part of Roxas for not hearing their side on the controversy.