Manila trike, pedicab drivers protest ordinance

Tricycle and pedicab drivers stage a noise barrage on Bustillos Street in Manila against the Manila Tri-Wheel Ordinance which requires them to pay a fee for the registration of their vehicles. RICHARD A. REYES

MANILA, Philippines–A group of tricycle and pedicab drivers staged a simultaneous noise barrage in three areas in Manila on Monday to protest a city ordinance requiring them to have their vehicles registered and apply for a transport franchise before they would be allowed to ply their routes.

In addition, the ordinance also bans them on 46 of the city’s major thoroughfares.

The mass actions were held on Bustillos Street in Sampaloc, the corner of United Nations and Taft Avenue, and on Tecson Street in Tondo.

The drivers honked the horns of their vehicles in protest of City Ordinance No. 8291 which they claimed was nothing but an attempt to get more money from them.

“They just want to extort money from us with these fees when we can barely earn [a living] for our families,” said Alyansa ng mga Nagkakaisang Pedicab at Kuliglig (Alnapedku) spokesperson Fernando Picorro.

He added that the fees they were being required to pay for the registration of their tricycles and pedicabs, in addition to the penalties for illegal parking that were being meted out against them, were preventing them from providing even just their family’s basic needs.

Picorro’s 66-year-old father, Cresencio, a tricycle driver plying the Legarda-España route, said the P300-minimum income that he was earning daily was not enough to put food on the table and at the same time send his grandchildren to school.

He told the Inquirer that he was apprehended twice in April for illegal parking although he claimed that he was aboard his vehicle when it was “forcefully” towed by officers of the Manila Traffic and Parking Bureau (MTPB).

“I had to pay P1,500 to recover my tricycle from the impounding area and that amount is almost equivalent to what I earn in one week,” the older Picorro complained.

“We demand the repeal of the ordinance which is an additional burden on us with its new fees and taxes…,” Piccoro said.

City Ordinance No. 8921 established the guidelines for the operation and registration of tricycles and pedicabs in Manila and enumerated the fees that their drivers and operators must pay. According to Piccoro, they were being required to pat P2,700 for the registration of their vehicles, including the application for a franchise. He noted that only about 30 percent among them were able to register as of last week because of the lack of money.