By Joseph B.A. Marzan
Transport workers in the country on Wednesday called on the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) to release their payouts under its service contracting program.
The service contracting program was one of the measures implemented by the national government to aid transport sector workers to relieve them from the economic impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
The DOTr and LTFRB’s Service Contracting Program Manual states that drivers will receive an initial net payout of P4,000 to buy smartphones which they will use under the program.
Using Net-Based Service Contracting, drivers will get to keep fares they collected, with an additional performance-based payout from the DOTr and the LTFRB based on the whole kilometer distance they run daily.
Payouts are supposedly facilitated weekly through mobile applications such as GCash or PayMaya, or through bank accounts with state-run Landbank of the Philippines.
Recently in Iloilo, the DOTr tapped PUVs under the PUV Modernization Program to provide subsidized rides for Authorized Persons Outside of their Residence (APOR) and healthcare frontliners.
But according to the transportation advocacy group Move As One Coalition, the national government earmarked around P8.58 billion for the program, with P5.58 billion from Republic Act No. 11494 (Bayanihan to Recover as One Act) and P3 billion under R.A. No. 11518 (General Appropriations Act of 2021).
Under R.A. No. 11519 signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on Dec. 29, 2020, appropriations made under R.A. No. 11494, also known as “Bayanihan 2”, was extended to June 30, 2021.
The coalition on Tuesday issued a statement calling out the DOTr for delaying payouts “while the clock was ticking” on the Bayanihan 2 extension.
This directly contradicts the DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade’s April statement, “Everybody happy in service contracting!”
In their statement, they claimed that the government only paid up to P46.1 million, which is roughly .82 percent of the P5.58 billion under the Bayanihan 2 package.
They added that the government only employed and onboarded up to 9,000 out of the target 60,000 transport workers.
The group had previously advocated for the service contracting model even before the pandemic, to solve Metro Manila’s already-existing transportation problem.
Move As One Coalition also sent a letter to several members of Congress in key economic committees to further extend the Bayanihan 2 appropriations.
“To date, many transport workers have not seen a peso of their hard-earned money. As a result, many of them have been tipped into extreme poverty. There’s more bad news: The ₱5.58-billion budget for the service contracting program will expire on June 30, 2021. The Move As One Coalition finds this situation unacceptable. It is unjust that the bulk of this billion-peso budget remains unspent while countless transport workers are reduced to begging in the streets as their families go hungry,” the coalition said in a statement issued Monday.
They also sent a letter to LTFRB Chairperson Martin Delgra, Tugade and DOTr Assistant Secretary for Road Transportation and Infrastructure Mark Steven Pastor, proposing to immediately fix the backlog in payouts, including discrepancies in payouts, and expand participation in the Service Contracting Program.
CHANGING THE RULES
The coalition also hosted a virtual press conference on Wednesday with leaders of several transport groups on Wednesday to share their stories relating to their woes on service contracting.
Ernie Cruz, a jeepney driver from Mandaluyong and President of the National Confederation of Transport Workers Union (NCTWU), expressed their eagerness to join the service contracting program but lamented the LTFRB’s frequent revisions of requirements.
Cruz narrated that they applied for the PUVMP since 2019, but the LTFRB kept returning their papers in the assessment stage and has not scheduled any hearing.
He added that the LTFRB has been delaying the issuance of franchises, citing his own brother’s franchise which applied for renewal in 2019 but was issued shortly before the expiry in 2020.
He asked the LTFRB to waive “draining” penalties since they have been suffering economically due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There is a willingness, particularly for us, because we are already a registered cooperative in Mandaluyong, already accredited by the [Office of Transportation Cooperatives] and registered with the [Cooperatives Development Authority]. But the LTFRB keeps adding requirements. They were saying that we need to be a consolidated cooperative, with a hearing done and granted provisional authority so you could be considered a juridical entity. That’s how they said it,” Cruz said.
Monica Acha, a cooperative official based in Pavia town and the Vice-Chairperson of the Province of Iloilo Transport Service Cooperative (PITRANSCO), said many drivers under their cooperative only received in April their weekly payouts for the December 2020 to March 2021 period.
PITRANSCO initially joined the service contracting program with 18 units in Pavia but Acha said LTFRB requested 2,000 more units to join the program.
Before Iloilo units were able to join the program, Acha said she had to continuously bug LTFRB-Region 6 to approve the applications even though these were from individual drivers.
Acha added that due to the delay, jeepney drivers instead took out loans to survive and their payouts served as their loan payments.
She said that they had been reaching out to the LTFRB-Region 6’s PUVMP representatives to follow up on the unreleased payouts, but they were referred to personnel in the central office in Manila.
“It took us almost four months to be paid. We started in December and we were paid only in April. The effect of this is first, for the cooperatives who participated, they shouldered the P4,000 initial payout for them to start service contracting. Until now, they haven’t received their initial payout but they already got their service payout. They had to take out loans to sustain their families, so then when the payouts were released, they weren’t able to enjoy them. They just had to pay their loans,” Acha said.
NCTWU Secretary-General Jaime Aguilar said the DOTr must expedite the consolidation of cooperatives so they can enjoy.
Aguilar also called for institutionalization of the service contracting program beyond the pandemic, to eliminate the existing “boundary” system, where drivers currently earn based on the daily number of their passengers.
“If I were the LTFRB, I think this would be easy if they were open to ideas, we would be really eager to help. With the modernization they’re pushing, service contracting would be good to further capacitate and engage cooperatives to learn more in managing. Even without consolidation or modernization, everyone should be involved in service contracting,” Aguilar said.
Move As One Coalition’s spokesperson Hyacinth Bendaña called on the public and transport workers to “cooperate with cooperatives” and their leaders to help transport workers.
“The DOTr and Secretary Tugade issued a Press Release stating ‘everybody happy in service contracting’. My question here is simple. Are our transport sector leaders happy or satisfied with this program and its implementation? It is right that they have released P46.1 million, and that’s big, but that’s smaller compared to the P5.58 billion fund allocated for the program that will expire in two months,” Bendaña said.
