THE Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) in Western Visayas is urging the riding public, including those in Negros Occidental, to abide with the new provisional authorized flagdown fare for taxi services nationwide.
Effective today, the flagdown rate for taxi in the country, except in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), will go back to P40 for the first 500 meters.
For CAR, the flagdown rate is P35 for the first 400 meters.
Lawyer Jose Marie Lamparero, spokesperson and legal officer of LTFRB-Western Visayas, on Sunday said taxi drivers are urged to help inform the riding public by “temperately” explaining to them the new rate.
The agency, however, sees no major problem in the implementation of the new flagdown rate as the previous P30 was not fully carried out, he said.
From P40 since 2011, the flagdown fare for taxi was reduced to P30 in 2015 mainly due to low prices of petroleum products.
“We have noticed that it’s hard to implement the previous rate since taxi meters were not calibrated and some drivers were pretending to be blind of the order,” he said, adding that this is reflected in several complaints received by the LTFRB.
Since the order was only provisional, the LTFRB allowed the P10 manual deduction on flagdown rate instead of meter calibration.
Sometime last year, the agency decided to have all taxi meters calibrated as well as increase the waiting time from 300 meters to 500 meters. However, due to the huge amount to be shouldered by taxi operators, their motion for reconsideration was granted, Lamparero said.
The calibration costs P500 per unit thus, a taxi operator with at least 200 units will incur P100,000 for a fare reduction that is only provisional, he explained.
“Most of the complaints had not progressed, only one from Iloilo has reached the hearing stage, as complainants lost eagerness to elevate the case,” Lamparero said.
In the end, complainants felt pity on the erring drivers who may pay P5,000 for the violation, he said, adding that the agency cannot force the passengers to pursue the filing of the case.
The LTFRB-Western Visayas noted more complaints from Iloilo City compared to Bacolod City with a taxi population of about 30 percent only compared to the total number of units in Iloilo City.
Looming fare increase
The petition filed by various transport groups in the country covers only the reverting back to P40 of the taxi flagdown rate, and no increase for succeeding meters as well as for waiting time.
After the first 500 meters, there is an additional P3.50 in the succeeding 300 meters then another P3.50 for the next two minutes waiting time.
Lamparero, however, said the petitioners are also mulling to seek increase for the rates for succeeding distance.
He added that transport groups are asking to increase both the succeeding 300 meters and 120 seconds to P5.50, respectively.
“The Board has yet to consider and tackle this request pending the submission of the petition by the transport groups,” he said, adding that they are given until February 16 to submit their position paper.