December Economic Issue

Article Name: Roadworthiness is a concern
Retrieved: December 23, 2010
URL: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/davao/opinion/editorial-roadworthiness-concern

FOR weeks on end now, we see passenger multicabs with computer printout messages protesting what is called the "multicab phase-out."

Occasionally, we see rallies outside the Land Transportation Office and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board protesting the same.

The message sent is that by next year, all multicab vehicles serving as passenger jeepneys will be phased out, and the public says, that should not be so.

A closer inquiry on what the problem is, however, shows a skewed perspective on what public transport should be.

In the middle of the protest is Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) Department Order 96-963 on "Modernization of Public Transport Services."
"No unit shall be the subject of a new application for franchise, for extension of validity of Certificate of Public Convenience (CPC), for substitution of unit, and for increase of number of unit(s), if said unit is more than the minimum age requirement as specified below by the time of expiration of the covering CPC," the department order says.

For buses and minibuses including shuttle and school buses, it's 15 years from date of initial registration with the LTO.

For taxis, vehicles for rent, garage services and limousine services, the model of the unit should not be more than ten years old.

For what DOTC calls "filcab" or what is commonly known in Davao as multicab, it says, "The unit should not be more than ten years old reckoned from the date of initial registration with the LTO.

Meaning, the riding public is being taken for a ride by those protesting. It is not just multicab phase-out, it's phase-out of multicabs that are already more than a decade old.

The order was made in 1996, and thus the multicabs given franchise on that year should be 14 years old by this time, and still the order cannot be implemented. How old should public utility vehicles then be before operators and drivers allow these to retire? To think that these are already reconditioned and rebuilt units. No multicab is brand-new, and yet they are considered new when first registered. Now drivers and operators are saying they want to squeeze out more than a decade worth of service from these units?

It's back to the arguments that saw the deaths of passengers of uso-uso drivers. Drivers who were not above saying they have to drive at top speed so as to earn more because rice prices have gone up, food prices have gone up, and oil prices have gone up, never mind if they endanger the lives of their passengers in the process.
This is the same argument being used by payong-payong drivers who disregard traffic laws and drive along main thoroughfares when their existence have long been tolerated for as long as they only serve side-streets and subdivisions. They are poor, they have to earn, they would say. Never mind if their vehicles are not roadworthy and never mind if they are packing as many as 15 pupils in one payong-payong. They are poor, they have to earn. Never mind if even cars are not designed to carry 15 people.

This is all about roadworthiness, and not about depriving the poor. Public transport has to be serviced by roadworthy vehicles and this is what the LTFRB should make sure of.

Published in the Sun Star Davao newspaper on November 04, 2010



Reaction:
I think it is not about the vehicle age that the LTO, DOTC or CPC must phased-out the multicab vechiles. There are other certain things that they must look closer like the condition of the vehicle. Let’s say there are two vehicles that age 5 years and 15 years. The 5-year-old vehicle is already in bad condition – the engine always gets stuck or something – while the 15-year-old vehicle is still in good condition despite of its “old age” because it is well maintain. If we based it in the DOTC Department Order 96-963, then the vehicle that is 15 years will not be renewed. But if we based it in the vehicle’s condition, then the 5-year-old vehicle will be the one who won’t and must not be renewed because mainly because it’s not capable anymore of transporting the passengers.

Another thing is about the “uso-uso” vehicles. As a regular jeepney passenger especially multicabs (because it gets full easy because of its limited seating capacity), I never, even once, experienced riding an uso-uso multicab. Well, I experienced fast multicab drivers but being a fast driver is different from reckless driver. And as far as I know, the common uso-uso vehicles are the big ones not the small ones like multicab.

Overall it’s not right to just phased-out the multicabs. They must not look at the vehicle as a multicab, bus, or whatsoever. They must look at the condition of vehicle and maybe its past records like if this vehicle often gets an accident or the driver of this vehicle is not a good driver. And with this no driver will lost his job because he is driving a multicab.

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