DOTC gets flak anew over LRT, MRT fare hike

MANILA, Philippines - Senior opposition lawmakers slammed yesterday the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and Malacañang for misleading the public in imposing fare hikes for the Light Railway Transit (LRT) and Metro Rail Transit (MRT) systems.

Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano III denounced the DOTC and Malacañang as the House committee on transportation is set to conduct an inquiry on Jan. 8 into the fare hikes for the MRT-3 and LRT 1 and 2 that take effect on Jan. 4.

He assailed the DOTC and Malacañang operators for ridiculous justification that the billions in subsidies provided by government to MRT consumers are being borne by the people of the Visayas and Mindanao.

“This is a national approach to public utilities – like electricity and water services – that the DOTC trumpets to justify the arbitrary fare hikes,” Albano said.

He said in the electricity sector, Metro Manila and other national consumers for decades have paid billions of pesos in subsidies to shoulder the electrification of island-grids all over the country.

“The DOTC and Palace propagandists should bone up on national policies on subsidies for public utilities so that their distorted and crepuscular views may find enlightenment,” he said.

“Yet from out of nowhere, like despots and modern-day bureaucratic bullies to President Aquino’s avowed ‘bosses’, they slap totally unconscionable, arbitrary, unjustifiable rate increases to all hapless and helpless MRT-LRT commuters,” he said.

He said the subsidies being claimed by Malacañang are in reality the people’s money and represent a way that government gives back to the people what they truly need: an affordable and efficient mass transit system.

“DOTC officials and other government economic planners have totally closed their eyes and minds to the simple fact that all mass transit systems in the world are highly subsidized by the government,” Albano said.

Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares welcomed the congressional probe but warned the people that the inquiry would only be used by Aquino’s allies to justify the fare hikes.

He said the administration’s argument that people in Mindanao or the Visayas are subsidizing through public funds the MRT even if they don’t use it “is a dangerous divide- and-rule tactic of the shortsighted policymakers in Malacañang.

“These same people find nothing wrong with using the Malampaya Fund, which is also a public fund, for the emergency powers of Luzon even if it will not be used in the Visayas,” Colmenares said.