Mandaue council urges trike drivers to renew franchises

CEBU, Philippines - The committee chairman on transportation of the Mandaue City Council recently clarified that there are still available franchises that the tricycle operators in the city can avail of.

City councilor Elstone Dabon in a press conference said that there were only 1,600 tricycle operators in the city who renewed and secured their franchises at the City Hall.

Dabon said there are still 1,400 tricycle franchises available at the City Hall which tricycle drivers and operators can avail of.

This is in contrast with the allegations of tricycle drivers that there are only few franchises offered by the City Hall, which is reportedly the reason why most of them failed to secure or renew their franchises.

He said that the city granted 3,000 tricycle franchises but tricycle drivers just do not mind securing franchises and only a few of them renewed their franchises as most of them do not want to pay the penalty for their expiration.

In fact, Dabon said, from 2,500 franchises, the council has approved an ordinance in May last year  which increased it to 3,000.

Earlier, Greg Perez, the coordinator of the Pagkakaisa ng mga Tsuper at Operators Nationwide (Piston-Cebu) said that tricycle drivers in Mandaue complained of exorbitant fees during the renewal of their franchise.

Dabon clarified that those who failed to renew their expired franchises on time will be paying a P100 monthly penalty as what has been stipulated in the ordinance creating the Tricycle For Hire Franchising and Regulatory Board of Mandaue City.

Section 6 of the said franchise ordinance states that aside from paying P100 per month for their penalty, tricycle operators will also be made to pay P870 to renew their franchises.

This includes a filing fee of P100, P500 franchise fee, P100 for substitution of unit, P120 supervision fee, and P50 as inspection fee/clearance from the Traffic Enforcement Agency of Mandaue.

During yesterday's press conference, Dabon also divulged that the city cannot just immediately renew the franchises of the tricycle operators without being inspected by TEAM because they would no longer allow tricycles to ply the city streets if their sidecars are already dilapidated.  (FREEMAN)