Half of cabs in Baguio with flawed franchises

BAGUIO CITY—Transport authorities cannot go after taxicabs with irregular franchises, lest they bring bigger problems to the city’s mass transport system.

“Fifty percent of taxi franchises in Baguio were irregularly issued,” Celina Claver, director of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) in the Cordillera, said during the agency’s 25th anniversary program here on Friday.

Baguio has 3,500 taxi franchises but half of these were granted by one of Claver’s predecessors from 2004 to 2006 when a moratorium on their issuance was in effect.

“It would make it easier for me to just issue one memorandum to cancel all irregular franchises but it would mean reducing the number of taxicabs serving the public,” she said.

Alfredo Mondiguing said he had merely revived old franchises during the moratorium to meet a growing demand for public utility transport. “[My decision] was not in violation of the moratorium because the order was ‘no issuance of new franchises.’ I only revived the old ones,” he said.

Since 2012, the city council has deliberated on proposals to legalize the franchises issued by Mondiguing.

Acting on the council’s request in 1998, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board stopped the issuance of new public utility franchises in Baguio and in the neighboring towns of La Trinidad, Itogon, Sablan and Tuba in Benguet province. The council had noted that too many public utility vehicles plied these routes. Kimberlie Quitasol, Inquirer Northern Luzon