By Francis Allan L. Angelo
Provisional authority to ferry passengers is one solution proposed by an Iloilo City councilor to the problem faced by tricycle drivers with expired franchises.
Councilor Rommel Duron, committee on transportation chair, said the proposed provisional authority will temporarily cure the problem caused by the non-approval of the city’s Local Public Transport Route Plan (LTPRP).
The LTPRP is a document required by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) through the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) from local government units (LGUs) in 2017.
It is a plan detailing the route network, mode of public transportation (jeep, tricycle), and required number of units per mode for delivering public land transport services. This is prepared by the Local Government Units in accordance with a set of guidelines set by the LTFRB, which approves the plan.
As a result, a moratorium on the issuance of franchises to tricycles began in 2017 upon orders of the Department of Transportation and the Department of Interior and Local Governments. The moratorium will only be lifted once the LTPRPs of the LGUs are approved.
Duron told Daily Guardian that the LTPRP stayed in the doldrums until he assumed office in 2019 where he urged Mayor Jerry Treñas to comply with the requirement.
Treñas then formed a local transportation council which he heads together with Duron, who once worked for LTFRB-Western Visayas as legal officer.
“Until I assumed as councilor, the LTPRP was never completed. We then submitted the plan in December 2020 to the LTFRB and it was returned with certain recommendations that the City Planning and Development Office (CPDO) can implement,” he said.
As a result, Duron said the city cannot issue franchises for tricycles until the transport plan is approved. Another complication is that tricycle operators and owners cannot renew their registration with the Land Transportation Office if they lack a valid franchise from City Hall.
“For now, what we can do is tolerate these tricycles which are vital to our transportation system. And as a temporary cure, we will propose a provisional authority which will be good for at least a year in lieu of the 3-year franchise,” he added.
Duron said he will meet with the transportation sector next week to discuss their moves.
Meanwhile, tricycle drivers in the city are in a quandary as more than 80 percent of their 3,000 members failed to renew their franchises.
Mario Silvederio, Metro Iloilo City Federation of Tricycle Owners and Drivers Associations president, told Aksyon Radyo-Iloilo that they mount “guerilla” type operations just to survive.
“Many of us stopped in the meantime. If we do ferry passengers, we do it furtively or in secret because we lack a valid franchise,” Silvederio said.
