LTFRB asking too much for detached PUVs
An operator of public utility vehicles left behind by the required consolidation under the government’s Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program points the finger at Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board officials as the ones hampering the process.
The operator has over 30 UV Express units that he wants to be included under the PUVMP, but he is “being treated like a ping-pong ball by LTFRB officials,” he told the DAILY TRIBUNE on condition of anonymity.
“We are sent from office to office. They ask us for documents that we don’t think are necessary,” said the operator, who asked not to be named for fear of being made to suffer longer.
He said his fleet had been registered as a corporation and wondered if he should be required to form a cooperative.
LTFRB officials have not given him a good reason, he added.
“While, in fact, on the first day of the PUVMP implementation, the Department of Transportation along with the LTFRB was harping that we should form a corporation or a cooperative to be part of the program,” he added.
“During that time, until these eight extensions, we have been trying to be part of the PUVMP, but we have never been accommodated up to now,” he said.
He said that even after President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. approved the recommendation of Transportation Secretary Jaime J. Bautista to grant a three-month extension for the Industry Consolidation Component of “the now-called Public Transportation Modernization Program, they are still considered unconsolidated.”
“How come? We, in fact, are already a corporation,” he said.
“LTFRB even had the gall to come up with a press release last Thursday saying that unconsolidated PUVs will allowed to operate until 30 April as long as they are registered with the Land Transportation Office. Who would be crazy to travel without being registered? They would be caught,” he said.
“This way of treating transport industry members is the cause of the uproar in our ranks. They only help those who can afford to give them bribes,” the operator said.
LTFRB explains
LTFRB chairperson Teofilo Guadiz III, on the other hand, said they made the announcement on Thursday citing Memorandum Circular 2024-001, which issued the guidelines on the consolidation during the period of extension and granted provisional authority to unconsolidated individual operators to operate until the extension of the consolidation deadline on 30 April.
“The authority to operate the units of all unconsolidated individual operators is extended until 30 April 2024, provided the unit is currently registered with the Land Transportation Office and has a valid Personal Passenger Accident Insurance Coverage,” stated the three-page document dated 30 January 2024.
“Confirmation of units of unconsolidated individual operators may be allowed until 30 April 2024. The said units are allowed to ply the routes as PUVs only within the said period,” it added.