Yellow Bus Line buses (Photo from Yellow Bus Line, Inc. Facebook)
KORONADAL CITY – The city government here padlocked on Friday morning the terminal of Yellow Bus Line, Inc., causing inconvenience to thousands of passengers patronizing the company.
Mayor Eliordo Ogena said he ordered the closure of the terminal for operating without a business permit from city hall.
“The company has been operating without a business permit for two years in a row, that’s why the city government closed it,” he said.
Ogena told local media that city hall has issued a notice of closure to the company five times already, the last on Thursday, December 16, but the firm apparently disregarded them.
In response to the action of city hall, Yellow Bus posted an order from the Regional Trial Court Branch 42, involving a writ of execution on Civil Case No. 2316-42, in front of its closed terminal on Friday.
In a ruling issued on December 27, 2019, the court ordered the city mayor and concerned offices to refrain from implementing City Ordinance No. 9 Series of 2018 on Yellow Bus, which operates from its private terminal along the highway in GenSan Drive for decades.
The ordinance requires all buses and passenger vans to use the city public terminal in interior Robredo Avenue.
The local court’s ruling had been appealed before the Court of Appeals, Ogena said.
Ogena said Ordinance No. 9 is not the issue why they closed Yellow Bus terminal on Friday.
“The company is operating illegally without a business permit so we closed their terminal – this is the issue here,” he added.
The mayor revealed that there have been at least three meetings with a company intermediary in a bid for settlement but negotiations bogged down.
Traffic enforcers stopped Yellow Bus units along the highway going to the cities of Tacurong in the north and General Santos in the south. The passengers were forced to disembark.
Yellow Bus is the oldest and the biggest bus operator in the Soccsksargen region based in this city, the capital of South Cotabato and the seat of the regional government.
It plies the provinces of South Cotabato, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and Davao del Sur, including Davao City.
Ogena apologized for the inconvenience brought by the closure of Yellow Bus’ private terminal to the riding public.
He, however, maintained that the company is operating illegally for lacking a business permit and that he is merely implementing the city’s revenue code in shutting down the firm’s own terminal.
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