77 buses could be a game changer
I read a report by Mitchelle Palaubsanon on page 8 of The Freeman yesterday entitled "7 transport groups united versus MyBus." As the story goes, the seven transportation groups that have been serving Cebu for many years now are totally against the approval by the Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board of the application by SM Holdings Inc. and JAM Transport to operate 77 hybrid buses in Metro Cebu.
If you ask me, this is why Cebu or the entire Philippines for that matter will always be a 3rd world country because government agencies like the LTFRB are held "hostage" by our numerous transport groups that organized themselves to assure their members that they would always have a livelihood by banding together to block any new developments or potential competition that could improve our mass transportation system. This is what I call "crab mentality" in the mass transportation business.
I recall during one of my interviews with my good friend, former Cebu Investment Promotion Center general manager Joel Mari Yu. He clearly told me that the only way we can get rid of the jeepney is to present to the discerning Cebuano commuter a better idea. In my book, 77 hybrid and air-conditioned buses means lesser public vehicles on the road and more comfort to our commuters and therefore it is a better idea than what we have in our mass transportation today. It is a game changer if you ask me.
Unfortunately for our commuters, they are not organized to resist these transport groups who believe that the government owes them a livelihood, which is why the jeepney has stayed this long as our principal mass transportation system despite its being so antiquated and dilapidated and is run or operated by irresponsible owners and drivers. These people are supposed to be holders of professional driver's licenses, but the way they operate their vehicles is far from the proper and professional way they should be carrying their passengers or the riding public.
Go around at night and I dare you count how many jeepneys you would encounter on our roads that do not turn on their headlights, thus endangering the lives of other motorists and pedestrians who cannot see them because they have no lights. Where is the professionalism there when they actually endanger the lives of their passengers?
In my book, the LTFRB's role as a regulatory agency is to ensure the safety and comfort of the riding public rather than look into the livelihood of those who are in the transportation industry. I have always maintained that the transportation industry should not be given to the people who cannot afford to upgrade their vehicles. But what is the reality today is we have public transportation that is so dilapidated.
They are literally rolling coffins!
Yet the owners of these public transportations use their poverty as their excuse for not being able to maintain these vehicles even if they already endanger the lives of our commuters.
Reading The Freeman article, let me quote what Mr. Romeo Aramento, NCTU-Visayas president said, "The transport groups in Cebu are not anti-development, they just want an assurance that they will not be displaced of their livelihood." If these transport groups do not want to be displaced, may I suggest that they target the many areas within Metro Cebu especially the areas where the only means of transportation is the dangerous and expensive habal-habal, and replace them with jeepneys because they are our accepted means of transportation, which is far safer for the riding public, where the passengers do not get wet when the rain comes.
Because of the rapid economic development of Metro Cebu, there are now many areas that have not been served by the jeepneys. This is what the LTFRB should look for and the jeepneys that the 77 MyBus would displace should be move to those areas that are now served by the habal-habals. If the LTFRB does not do this, then they have effectively doomed Metro Cebu to a future where it can never compete with our ASEAN neighbors like Singapore, Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur, which have modern mass transit systems that serve its people not to mention the thousands of tourists.
While there is this row between the transport groups and MyBus, people are asking whatever happened to the Bus Rapid Transit that was introduced many years ago. As I already mentioned in my previous columns, even the original proponent of the BRT, former Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is no longer pushing for the BRT because of teething problems within two major government agencies, the DOTC who is the principal proponent of the BRT and the DPWH that controls that roads where the BRT is supposed to traverse.
So are we doomed as a third world metropolis?
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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected] or [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.
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