MEMBERS of the Cordillera Basic Sectors Transport Cooperative (CBSTC) expressed its readiness to undergo modernization once it will be fully implemented in 2019.
Rex Bayangan, CBSTC secretary general said the general assembly aims to inform members to convert their associations into cooperatives.
“The creation of a cooperative transport is created by law. We just need to follow the guidelines and mandates for us to comply with all the requirements before receiving our franchises coming from the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB),” Bayangan said.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier announced the start of the jeepney phase out for old public utility vehicles which failed to pass the stringent inspection by the LTFRB.
The number of franchise to be issued to CBSTC would depend on how many franchise it would identify basing on the routing plan created by the local government unit of Baguio through the assistance of the transport cooperative.
“The question here would be, who are the legitimate cooperatives and for CBSTC, who is now a legitimate transport cooperative identified by the Office of the Cooperative Transport (OTC), then the franchise will be given to us before we release it to our members,” Bayangan stated.
OTC have identified three transport cooperatives, one of which is CBSTC having 20 to 30 associations in the region with 264 founding members, and a P60 million capital share as per verification of the banks indicating their solidness as a cooperative.
“Based on a survey we conducted, what we saw was that most of our drivers have no social benefits like SSS and Pag-ibig, so once they become members of the cooperative, it will now answer for the social benefits aside from it patronage rate card for the members,” Bayangan added.
The vehicles to be used by CBSTC are Euro 4 vehicles which have passed the necessary requirements specific for the Cordillera region.