Transport strike hardly felt in Cagayan de Oro

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The nationwide transport strike staged by some groups on Monday, Sept. 30, was hardly felt here as jeepneys continued to ply city streets.

Aminoden Guro, Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board-10 (LTFRB) regional director, said this could be due to the acceptance by most transport groups in the city of the Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP) of the Duterte administration.

The program would lead to a phaseout of aging jeepneys.

Guro said most transport groups in the city, which did not join the strike, “have already understood and appreciated” the benefits of the program.

Guro said one lesson learned was that it was useless to go on strike anyway as “this program, whether they like it or not, will be pushed by the government.”

The government, he said, would not be intimidated into suspending or ending the program.

Transport groups that had joined the strike—Acto, Piston and Pasang Masda—also had no members in the city.

The National Confederation of Transport Union, which had members here, had earlier refused to join the strike, according to Guro.

He said his office would enforce an order that would revoke the franchise of drivers or operators who joined the strike.

A franchise, he said, “is a privilege.” “If they resort to actions that would inconvenience the public, we have the power to revoke that franchise,” Guro added.

Although there was no visible participation in the strike among drivers here, Guro said he would still have to teach a lesson to those who took part in the strike by asking them to explain why they did not ply their routes on Monday, Sept. 30./TSB