Passengers urged not to pay adjusted bus fare if new fare matrix isn’t posted inside bus

Cebu City, Philippines — Despite the effectivity of the provisional adjustment of the bus fare today, April 1, 2019, passengers may still refuse to pay the adjusted fare if the bus unit they are riding has not posted the new fare matrix.

Julito Flores, president of the Cebu Provicial Bus and Mini-bus Operators Cooperative, urged passengers to observe the new fare schedule only if the new bus fare matrix is duly posted inside the bus unit and the amount is correctly reflected in the tickets issued to them.

“Atong hangyoon atong mga pasahero nga di moplete ani nga pletehan kung walay taripa ang bus ug minibus. Dapat posted ang original gyud and not only the photocopy,” Flores said in a phone interview with CDN Digital.

(We appeal to the passengers not to pay the right fare if the bus or the minibus has not posted the new fare matrix. It should be the original fare matrix and not just a photocopy.)

In a visit at the Cebu South Bus Terminal this morning, some bus conductors told CDN Digital that they still await their operators to give them the copy of the fare matrix before they start to impose the new fare rates.

Bus and minibus operators may acquire the fare matrix at the regional office of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board in Central Visayas (LTFRB-7) upon presenting the registration documents of their units and payment of P520.

“Ang atong hangyo sa drivers and operators, kita man ang mag-implement gyud ani, dili pwede nga di mo mo-issue og ticket. Sa mga pasahero, mamahimo gyud nga di mo moplete kung di mo hatagan og ticket,” Flores said.

(Our request to the drivers and operators, since we are the one who will implement this, is  that it isn’t right that we don’t issue a ticket. To the passengers, you are allowed not the pay the fare if you are not given a ticket.)

Flores added that the rules in implementing the new fare matrix should be observed properly to give advantage for legitimate bus operators who pay proper taxes compared to those who run colorum bus lines.

LTFRB-7 Regional Director Eduardo Montealto Jr., in an earlier interview, said that the provisional fare increase was approved in November last year.

However, the implementation only took effect today because of the disparity of the fare schedule of Cebu buses compared to other areas in the country.

In the provisional fare order issued by the LTFRB Central Office for all buses in the country, the base fare for the first 5 kilometers is P9. The order stated that the charge for each succeeding kilometer should be raised by 15 centavos from the current P1.40.

In Cebu, the previous bus base fare was only P6. Hence, implementing the order would seem like imposing a P3 increase on the base fare and P0.15 per kilometer.

Montealto said he had to seek guidance from the central office because of the disparity in the Cebu and Manila bus fare rates. 

It was only in a conference in Camiguin province earlier in March that LTFRB Central Office execs gave LTFRB-7 the go signal to implement the new fare matrix, Montealto explained. /bmjo