Securing PUV franchise made easier

Transport operators will no longer have a hard time securing their certificate of conformity (COC).

The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board-7 has issued Board Resolution relaxing the documentary requirements needed for securing a franchise for public utility vehicles (PUVs) on loans from banks.

LTFRB-7 regional director Eduardo Montealto said the COC requirement for franchise application will be dropped as stipulated in the Board Resolution 05-2023.

According to LTFRB, the said requirement was seen as a frequent cause of delay or dismissal of applications for certificate of public convenience (CPC).

Transport leader Ryan Benjamin Yu said that this is a welcome development and although all land transport denominations will benefit on this, but most especially to taxi, TNVS, tourist van and V-Hire.

LTFRB chairperson Teofilo Guadiz, in an earlier statement, is hoping that removing the COC requirement in a vehicle franchise application will help ease the burden among the transacting public and give them more convenience in securing that much-needed vehicle franchise.

Meanwhile, Greg Perez, president of Pagkakaisa ng mga Samahan ng Tsuper at Opereytor Nationwide (PISTON)-Cebu, is hoping that LTFRB will make true its promise to subsidize the P160,000 amount per unit to those jeepney operators who wanted to purchase a brand new modernized jeepneys. “Kay sa pagka karon pulos ra gyud ni istorya,” Perez added. Under the Public Utility Vehicles Modernization Program (PUVMP), operators that are members of transport cooperatives and corporations eligible to purchase modernized vehicles are qualified for an equity subsidy in the fixed amount of P160,000 from the original P80,000.

Through the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) Department Order 2020-006 signed on June 5, 2020, the equity subsidy was increased with the increase in price of modernized PUV units from P1.6 million to P2.4 million.

The equity subsidy is the financial loan provided by the Development Bank of the Philippines under the PUVMP to help PUV operators procure modernized units.

Montealto earlier said that 80 percent of the public utility jeepneys in Cebu are already consolidated in compliance with DOTr’s PUVMP.

Yu, also general manager and president of Cebu Integrated Transport Multi-Purpose Cooperative (CITRASCO MPC), said, on their part, their papers are on process already since it takes time to process the documents needed for the loan.

Each unit of modernized jeepneys would cost between P1.8 million to P2.4 million of which the government P160,000 per unit regardless of the price. —