Bus scheme critics take gripes to Ombudsman

A group claiming to represent commuters went to the Office of the Ombudsman on Wednesday to question the legality of a transport terminal which implements a Palace-backed scheme to reduce the number of buses in Metro Manila.

The National Center for Commuter Safety and Protection (NCCSP) asked Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales to order the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to stop the operation of the Southwest Interim Transport Terminal (SWITT) at Coastal Mall in Parañaque City.

The terminal serves as the last stop for buses from Laguna and Cavite provinces. Prior to its opening on Aug. 6, these buses could go all the way to Lawton in Manila and Taft Avenue in Pasay.

Last week, two public school teachers who live in Cavite and work in Manila also complained about the terminal, citing the inconvenience and added expenses it had caused for daily commuters, in a petition filed in the Supreme Court.

The NCCSP, through its president Elvira Medina, also asked the antigraft body to compel MMDA Chair Francis Tolentino to furnish the group with documents involving contracts that the MMDA may have entered into to build and later make improvements at the P24-million terminal.

Medina said the NCSSP had found out that the lots on which the MMDA built waiting sheds, a children’s playground and other permanent structures belong to Manila Bay Holdings and that Coastal Mall is owned by Macario Gaw.

According to Medina, the terminal’s location was inappropriate, inconvenient and inefficient and that its operation only added to the burden of commuters coming from Cavite and Laguna.

Aside from attracting petty criminals like snatchers, the terminal is hardly user-friendly especially for senior citizens and people with disabilities, the group claimed.

It also “illegally cut short” the regular Cavite-Manila route set under the franchise given to affected bus companies. The route, it said, was unilaterally modified by the MMDA without public hearing, in violation of the rules of procedure of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board.

As a result, Medina said, commuters were forced to pay additional fares of up to P20 each to take rides from the terminal to Lawton and vice-versa via UV Express taxis.

The MMDA has repeatedly defended the scheme by citing Executive Order No. 67, which President Aquino issued last year to fast-track the establishment of an efficient, seamless and integrated mass transport system for Metro Manila by 2016.

In Wednesday’s complaint, Medina said the Ombudsman has the power to investigate on its own any act committed by a public official or agency when the act appears to be illegal, unjust, improper or inefficient.