Cortes backs reprieve for trike drivers

A one-year moratorium on payments for mayor’s permits will be given to Mandaue City’s tricycle drivers to allow them to purchase other public utility vehicles (PUV), city officials said yesterday.

City Treasurer Regal Oliva said Mayor Jonas Cortes wants the one-year moratorium to take effect this year, so the tricycle drivers can form a cooperative that will enable them to buy PUVs for their livelihood.

Oliva said the Mandaue city government will sacrifice about P3.2 million in revenue from payments to mayor’s permits so the tricycle drivers can shift to other modes of public transportation.

Oliva said Cortes acknowledged that while tricycles cannot be phased out, they can ply the interior routes of the city.

The mayor said he hopes the tricycle drivers shift to multicabs or jeepneys instead.  But the city treasury chief said the tricycle operators should move quickly to form their own cooperative.

The Mandaue City Council had yet to hear of the mayor’s moratorium proposal.

Tricycle drivers like 39-year-old Ranulfo Aumentado, of barangay Looc, a member of the Looc Tricycle Operators and Driver’s Association (LOTODA) said the city government should extend financial assistance for them to buy their own units.

“It’s hard to form a cooperative and yet the members won’t contribute their share,” said Aumentado, a tricycle driver for the past 12 years.

Another tricycle driver, 51-year-old Gilbert Timblon, said city officials should go after colorum units instead. /Correspondent Norman Mendoza