Chaos at PITX resulting from differing LTFRB and DOTr orders

THE newly opened Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange (PITX) is one of the flagship projects of the government to ease traffic congestion in inner Metro Manila. It promises to deliver a firstworld experience with passenger-friendly systems, multi-modal connections, and a wide array of commercial options in a terminal with a daily capacity of 200,000 passengers.

It is expected to serve passengers from Cavite and Batangas going to Metro Manila, and vice-versa, providing them ease of transfers between different modes of land transportation such as buses, taxis, jeepneys, and other PUVs.

President Duterte was impressed with what PITX can offer commuters in terms of convenience and a solution to traffic congestion in Metro Manila. “I am impressed. I am proud. As the first integrated and multi-modal terminal in the southwestern part of Metro Manila, PITX is a landmark project – a landport that feels and functions like an airport,” he said beaming when the terminal was inaugurated last month.

Megawide, the builder, was awarded by the government a 35-year Build-Transfer-Operate concession in 2015, worked with international consultants and studied intermodal stations in first-world cities like Melbourne, London, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore to make PITX into the Philippines’ first landport.

The terminal systems are designed to be passenger-friendly, such as the assured seating system for buses, public information displays in multiple locations, and ample seating throughout the facility. Automated boarding pass scanners will ensure that passengers can board buses only during their chosen trip schedules.

One can glean that PITX is not only a solution-solver to untangling not only the traffic congestion in the metropolis, but also an effective way to identify colorum or illegal bus companies, and prevent the increasing number of buses plying outof-line or those not following the routes lawfully specified in their franchises.

No doubt, a perfect and ideal terminal that promises to provide enormous travel convenience to commuters coming from the south and vice versa.

But the promise of convenience seems to be in peril. Doubts are cast for PITX to put some order to the country’s fragmented mass transport system confusion on which provincial and city buses must stop to drop passengers and just pass by the terminal marred the first two weeks of operation.

Visibly, commuters are not happy to be dropped in PITX and left without any alternative transport to continue their journey within Metro Manila.

Small Cavite bus operators also complained why large bus companies were allowed to go straight to their destinations within the metropolis, yet the distance of their routes are similar to provincial buses that were required to terminate in PITX.

“May pamilya din ho kaming binubuhay at umaasa sa amin pero kung papaboran ng gobyerno ang malalaking bus operators ay payagan silang huwag huminto sa PITx, wala nang sasakay sa mga bus namin kasi pipiliin ng pasahero ang mga bus na dumederecho sa Lawton, Pasay, at EDSA,” said one of the small bus operators plying a Cavite-PITX route.

Why the confusion?

This is due to the disarrayed rules and regulations issued by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB).

The LTFRB issued Memorandum Circular (MC) 2018-020 on September 13, 2018, requiring all public utility vehicles with routes from southwest of Metro Manila to the National Capital Region to end their trips at the PITX if they go through Coastal Road and the Cavite Expressway.

A few weeks before PITX was inaugurated by President Duterte, DOTr released Department Order (DO) No. 2018-025 changing all that was discussed and agreed during the year-long consultation and meetings with LTFRB and bus operators that resulted in the issuance of MC 2018-020.

D/O 2018-025 stipulates the exemption of about 300 large bus companies from terminating in PITX and allowed to proceed with their routes within the inner Metro Manila, including in Lawton, Pasay Rotonda, Baclaran, EDSA, and Ayala.

The confusion reached the doors of the Senate, forcing Senator Grace Poe’s public service committee to conduct a public hearing, calling both the LTFRB and DOTr to attend and explain why they exempted about 300 provincial buses to end their routes at the PITX.

Poe, clearly disappointed on changing the rules of the game even before PITX got off the ground, said: “Kasalanan n’yo ito! From the outset dapat pinaabangan nyo na city buses sa PITX to pick up passengers offloaded by the provincial buses.”

“Mahigit dalawang taon na kayo diyan sa DOTr at LTFRB mula ng malaman niyo ang proyekto tungkols a PITX, bakit nitong Oktubre ninyo lang biglang naisipan palitan ang inyong polisiya o patakaran at biglang pinayagan pumasok sa kalakhang Maynila ang 300 na bus?” Poe asked during the Senate hearing.

She said that with the exemption given to the hundreds of buses, a number of complaints were raised from the public following the opening of PITX last November.

She added, “You [LTFRB/DOTr] fixed the fare matrix for routes. Instead, wala kayong ginawa, and without conducting public consultations, issued a D/O to supersede the original MC, and gave exemptions to big bus operators indiscriminately, to the detriment of the small bus operators who complied with the original agreement to use the PITX. Common sense ‘na dapat yan’!”

“Para namang anak ng Diyos ang mga big bus operators na ito na exempted,” Poe lamented, saying she is willing to conduct another hearing even during the Christmas holiday season to resolve this, and urging DOTr Secretary Art Tugade to attend the hearing to make an explanation.

In the midst of the apparent muddle, the public is drawn to criticize PITX as “far from becoming

like Hong Kong’s Central station, a point of convergence of the various Mass Transit Railway or MTR lines and where a passenger can hop into the high-speed Airport Express. It also connects passengers to the tramway, buses, minibuses, and ferries.

The chaotic rules issued by LTFRB and DOTr, are sending a wrong signal to small bus operators willing to comply with transport regulations and large infra developers and investors injecting significant amount to build the modern PITX.

The modern and passenger-friendly bus terminal is on the verge of becoming a “while elephant” if LTFRB and DOTr – supposedly mandated to provide commuters with safe, convenient, and reliable transport services – fail to reconcile or come up with a clear transport order.

It is reported that the cost to build PITX was about P32.5 billion, and it seems this investment will also dissipate in the air if the government ‘s agencies concerned do not put their act together. If the government is really serious in enticing the private sector to participate in its ‘Build BuildBuild’ program, they should make doing business for them a lot easier by formulating clear guidelines that are not changed midway in favor of the “chosen ones.”