Teachers go to SC, take up cudgels for bus scheme critics

They claim to represent the stressed-out masses.

Two public school teachers from Bacoor City, Cavite province, have asked the Supreme Court to stop the implementation of the government’s Integrated Transport System that led to the establishment of a P24-million terminal for provincial buses in Parañaque City.

Panita Ladera and Dolores Salanga filed a petition on Thursday on behalf of all commuters taking public buses south of Metro Manila.

They asked the high court to declare as unconstitutional President Aquino’s Executive Order No. 67, which was issued in February to set up the ITS; and Administrative Order No. 40 which was issued in July to set up three terminals for provincial buses on the outskirts of the capital.

The petition also questioned a memo from the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) that altered the routes of buses coming from Southern Luzon as part of the measures to decongest major roads, particularly Edsa.

The teachers mainly complained about the Southwest Interim Transport Terminal at Coastal Mall, Parañaque, which opened on Aug. 6 to be the final stop for buses coming from Cavite and Laguna. Their previous routes go all the way to Lawton in Manila or Taft-Rotonda in Pasay City.

Ladera and Salanga said they are both math teachers who commute to work in Manila, at F. G. Calderon Integrated School in Tondo and Manila High School in Intramuros, respectively.

Due to changes in their daily trip coming from Cavite, they said, they had been forced to cope with longer travel hours, higher expenses, and stress over the lack of public utility vehicles that they can take from the Southwest Terminal.

“The toll on our time and finances is too much, given our measly salaries as public school teachers,” they said.

The petitioners asked why commuters were “not consulted” prior to the implementation of the ITS. “(It) was adamantly pursued without providing alternatives to cushion the impact of a decreased number of city buses entering Manila,” they added.

Named respondents in the petition were Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, LTFRB Chair Winston Ginez and Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chair Francis Tolentino.

Salanga and Ladera also said the national government also failed to consider the City of Manila’s “no-terminal, no-entry” ordinance against provincial and city buses, a lapse which they said added to the passengers’ ordeal.

They also noted that the new scheme had been forcing commuters to take Asian utility vehicles and jeepneys in areas far from the terminal in order to avoid the crowds there.