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BY RESEL JOY TIANERO
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Thursday, February 23, 2017
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ILOILO City – Jeepney drivers in this city and Iloilo province plan to hold a strike next week to dramatize their opposition to the proposed phaseout of jeepneys 15 years old and older.
Various jeepney associations will meet to decide on the date of the transport holiday, said Edgar Salarda, leader of the Pinag-Isang Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Operators Nationwide (Piston) Panay.
For their part, members of the Iloilo City Loop Alliance of Jeepney Operators and Drivers Associations (ICLAJODA) are proposing an alternative to the phaseout – rehabilitation of old jeepneys so these could meet modern safety and environmental standards.
Raymundo Parcon, ICLAJODA president, said “99 percent” of jeepneys in the whole country would be affected by the phaseout.
The transport strike may become regionwide, said Salarda. There are 12,234 passenger jeepneys in Region 6, he said.
In this city, “almost 90 percent” of passenger jeepneys were 15 years old or older, according to Atty. Jose Marie Lamparero, spokesperson of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) Region 6.
The jeepney started as remodeled army vehicles left behind by US forces after World War II, and became a showcase of Filipino ingenuity and resourcefulness. Mainly patronized by low- to middle-income passengers, it has become the core of Philippine public transport.
There were about 236,000 public utility jeepneys in the country, with Iloilo city and province accounting for about 5,700 of them, according to Lamparero.
“The government proposes brand new jeepneys. It’s normal for jeepney operators to react negatively, especially those with units 15 years old and older. They wouldn’t be able to have them registered anymore,” he said.
But Salarda said many families will be economically dislocated by the phaseout. By his group’s estimate, there were over 50 thousand drivers and operators in Panay Island.
Under the transport modernization plan of the government, jeepney operators will reportedly be forced to buy brand new units only from manufacturers accredited by the Land Transportation Office.
“This arrangement smacks of opportunism and greed in the guise of transport modernization. The plan is clearly about making money,” said Salarda./PN
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