Mindanaotoday.com | Drivers: ‘Taripa’ too ‘pricey’; LTFRB clarifies
By: Franck Dick Rosete
Joel Gabatan, the chairman of the United Drivers Association (UNIDA) of Cagayan de Oro, wondered why the “taripa” would cost over P500 as it would only serve as a paper document containing the adjusted fare matrix.
“What if they just follow what they do now where they use a paper and mark the minimum fare of P11. What if they would just follow that? I don’t think that would cost over P500,” Gabatan said in a phone interview on Friday, September 23.
Nevertheless, the association chairman urged his members to get their original copies of the adjusted fare matrix in order for them to appropriately collect the new minimum fare this coming October 3.
In response, LTFRB-10 Director Aminoden Guro clarified that the P520 is the filing fee of “taripa” for transport cooperatives per franchise case number and not per operator.
“If the case number is composed of 10 or 100 [PUJ] units, they just need to pay P520 for the filing fee and only additional P50 in every succeeding unit,” Guro said in a separate phone interview on Friday, September 23.
However, Guro said there are case numbers that only consist of one public utility vehicle (PUV) unit.
For transport cooperatives, there are more or less 20 units per case number, depending on the members of the cooperative.
The LTFRB-10 director also clarified that they did not collect any filing fee on the previous fare hike implemented in July as they still have a provisional increase.
The fare hike for various PUVs in the Northern Mindanao Region will start on October 3, where there is an increase of P1 on both traditional and modernized jeepneys and an additional P5 on taxis’ flag-down rates.
With that, the new fare rate for traditional public jeepneys will be P12 and P14 for the modernized PUJs. Meanwhile, the new taxi’s flag-down rate is now at P45.
The fare hike on October 3 will be the second fare increase this year.
It can be recalled that the LTFRB central office also approved the provisional jeepney minimum fare hike of P2 for some regions in June and fully implemented on the first of July, making the PUJ’s fare rate in Northern Mindanao to P11 (current) from P9.
UNIDA was one of the petitioners, where they filed for a P5 fare increase around March of 2022.
“The drivers were very happy because the fare increase is already a huge help for them. If they have 200 passengers per day, that would be an additional P200,” Gabatan said.
Guro called on the drivers that they cannot force their passengers to pay the new minimum fare on October 3 without placing the new fare matrix inside their units.
He also urged the riding public to immediately report to LTFRB regional office 10 if drivers asked them for P12 fare prior October 3.
“I also called on the passengers that if they observed that drivers asked for fares that were not included in the Taripa, they can also report that to our office as overcharging,” Guro added. (MT)
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