Friday, July 25, 2008 Some PUJs ‘use’ photocopied tariff
THE Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) sought the assistance of the City Traffic Operations and Management (Citom) and the Land Transportation Office (LTO) to track down passenger jeepney drivers who are using photocopies of the new tariff matrix.
LTFRB 7 Director Romulo Bernardes received complaints that several drivers do not display the original fare matrix in full view of the passengers as required.
Instead these drivers just show a photocopy, a violation of the rules and regulations.
Bernardes received information that drivers who failed to show the original tariff matrix are either operating colorum passenger jeepneys due to lack of certificate of public convenience (franchise) or they did not secure matrix to avoid paying fee.
Bernardes, who personally supervised the issuance of tariff matrix since last week, has ordered that passenger jeepneys without franchise will not be issued fare matrix because they are illegal.
Violators
“Citom and LTO (Land Transportation Office) enforcers are now ordered to apprehend the violators,” he said.
Also, Bernardes said LTFRB 7 will be opened tomorrow to issue stickers of notices for the increase of P10 in taxi fares.
Bernardes also warned taxi drivers against collecting the increase without the sticker.
He said that LTFRB will start apprehending taxi units without stickers by Aug. 1.
LTO 7 Director Raul Aguilos, on the other hand, said LTO and LTFRB will jointly conduct operations to check if colorum passenger jeepneys are still running on various Cebu routes.
“In the meantime, I ordered LTO enforcers to conduct on-the-spot check for those who are only using machine copies of tariff matrix,” Aguilos said.
Under LTO rules and regulations, collecting new fares without tariff matrix is considered overcharging and is punishable by a fine of P1,000.
Municipalities
A few years ago, Italian national Alfred Honneger who used to operate Cebu People’s Express with about 200 jeepney units plying in the cities of Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue and the municipalities or Liloan and Consolacion filed a complaint with LTFRB in 2004 against operators of about 500 colorum jeepneys.
Honneger stopped his business after he found out that LTFRB officials tolerated the colorum operation and did not bother to investigate his complaint.
Honneger, in his complaint, told LTFRB officials that colorum jeepneys endanger the interest of the riding public because these are not covered by insurance, having no franchise. (EOB)
