Provisional fare rate

So what else was new with last Monday’s rally by a handful of taxi operators and drivers in front of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board regional office?

Those who joined the rally led by the militant transport group Piston denounced anew the national government’s order to recalibrate the taxi meters back to the P30 flag down rate in light of the recent drops in fuel prices around the world.

While insisting that the flag down rate be retained, those rallyists also wanted the repeal of a Joint Administrative Order that they said was anti-driver since it sought tougher sanctions against errant operators and drivers of public utility vehicles (PUV) which consisted of buses, taxis and jeepneys.

We have been through these rallies before, and in one such rally, a taxi driver that got interviewed admitted that he was told by his operator to join the rally lest he does not get paid for the day.

Thankfully the rallies were not so disruptive that they caused traffic and the past few transport holidays did not result in hundreds of commuters being stranded in the streets, but you never know with these militant groups.

The bottom line question is: have these rallies drawn widespread public support or are they instigated by a few operators who simply want to retain the status quo and earn more from the old P40 rate at the expense of the commuters?

It’s been sometime since global oil and fuel prices have gone down, and yet while PUV operators may use the reluctance of local oil firms to lower fuel prices as basis for their argument not to lower fare rates, there’s no denying that there were substantial drops in prices.

After jeepneys and buses, it was high time for the taxi operators to return to the P30 flag down rate even if most of them insist that the prices of spare parts have yet to go down.

Even before the P30 flag down rate becomes official, there have been taxi drivers who refuse to follow or even dance around the provisional P10 reduction in the flag down rate, giving all sorts of excuses to commuters.

Now the LTFRB reconsidered its decision and rather than proceed with the recalibration, they decided to hear the operators and drivers anew. At this point, we wonder whether the riding public would have to consider riding jeepneys more and avoid riding taxis due to the obstinance of operators to lower their rates.

It’s still two years away from the full operation of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and as we saw with the SM MyBus units, the viability of buses as convenient mass transport offers to the public the promise and assurance of comfort in riding to and from their destination.

It couldn’t come early enough. For now, the public has to make do with jeepneys and taxis that insist on charging more even with lower fuel prices.