A P20 lounge fee was previously collected by the mall adjacent the Danao City port because the shipping line that operates the Danao to Camotes. (Photo from Capitol PIO)
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Since Friday, November 8, passengers at the Danao City port spend P20 less that they used to do when they travel to Camotes Island.
This after Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia halted the collection of the P20 lounge fee imposed by the mall where the Jomalia Shipping Line Corp., the shipping company that operates the Danao-Camotes route, had its ticketing office.
This means that the passengers only need to pay the P5 terminal fee for the Cebu Port Authority on top of the cost of their tickets.
Garcia, in a report posted on the Capitol new website, told the shipping line to return to their ticketing booths at the port’s gate, instead of inside the mall that is adjacent to the port, to spare the passengers from paying P20 for the mall’s lounge use.
Garcia said the lounge fee was a burden to the passengers who are “mostly not well off.”
“This is an added burden for our brothers and sisters who need to take these vessels in going to and from Camotes. Kadaghanan, these are not the very well off kay taga-isla intawon. Kanang P20 makapalit na nag tunga sa kilo nga bugas,” Garcia said.
(Most of these are not very well off and are residents of the island. The P20 can already buy them half a kilo of rice.)
Read: Frasco questions lounge fee for passengers at Danao City port
Last September, Cebu fifth district Representative Vincent Franco “Duke” Frasco, the governor’s son-in-law, has asked the Lower House’s Committee on Transportation to conduct an investigation into the collection of the lounge fee, which he said was irregular since the mall did not have an agreement with the Cebu Port Authority.
Last Thursday, November 7, Frasco met and the representatives of the shipping line met with the governor where the abolition of the lounge fee was agreed on./elb