DOTr urged to slow down jeep modernization amid rising fuel prices

KING OF ROAD | Traditional jeepneys ply Baguio City’s main streets in this photo taken on Monday. Jeepney operators have until the middle of 2022 to convert their public utility vehicles into modern units similar to air-conditioned minibuses. Transport regulators are being asked to postpone the deadline because of the pandemic and high fuel prices. —ALLAN MACATUNO

BAGUIO CITY, Benguet, Philippines — The Department of Transportation (DOTr) was urged by the transport sector and the city government here to slow down on its jeepney modernization program, given the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on fuel prices, and allow the industry to recover from two years of the COVID-19 pandemic

Mayor Benjamin Magalong said on Monday that the city government was endorsing a position paper being drafted by various Baguio public utility vehicle (PUV) associations that requested for a change in the government’s timeline for replacing all traditional PUVs with small urban buses.

PUV operators were earlier given until March 31 to consolidate into transport organizations, paving the way for the phase out of older, traditional jeepneys.

Magalong said he met with operators of PUVs last week to gauge how they were coping now that the city’s status of alert level 1 allowed them to serve residents at full capacity.

PUVs, except those serving the authorized persons outside residences composed mainly of health-care workers, were not permitted to ply their routes when the government imposed a Luzon lockdown in March 2020, followed by varying stages of quarantine to control public movement and curb the spread of COVID-19.

A 2017 study of PUVs in the summer capital showed 4,000 units operate in the city during daytime.

Some Baguio routes are currently being served by around 80 modern PUVs owned by newly organized fleets, like Cordillera Basic Sectors Transport Cooperative.

Quantify cost

“DOTr needs to quantify the cost of the pandemic on the average jeepney driver,” Magalong said, adding that this could help adjust the process and period required for converting to modern public utility fleets.

The government’s modernization program provides access to loans that operators “may no longer be able to afford given the circumstances,” Magalong said.

Independent jeepney drivers and operators, as well as transport organizations, have only started to recoup their losses not only because of the travel restrictions but also because the economy slowed down until regulations were eased in the last months of 2020 and most of 2021, he said.

Magalong said government regulators should also calculate the additional impact of unabated fuel price hikes on the local transport industry.

Pump prices for gas and diesel have risen since Russia, an oil producer, launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine on Feb. 24. Diesel users have paid up to P12 more since Feb. 26 and are bracing for another P12 spike this week.

The burden for motorists is higher in Baguio, where diesel and gas cost P5 to P10 more than the P73 per liter of gas charged in Rosario town, La Union province, on Sunday and P72 gas price in Metro Manila.

—VINCENT CABREZA

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