LTFRB OKs jeepney fare cut in Bicol

The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) has approved a 50-centavo reduction of the public utility jeepney (PUJ) minimum fare in the Bicol region.

In a three-page order released on Friday, the board ordered a provisional decrease of jeepney fares from P8 to P7.50 for the first four kilometers. The P1.40 fare for every succeeding kilometer will be retained.

The LTFRB issued the order in relation to a pending petition from Legazpi City resident Quirico R. Candilosas Jr., who asked for a P1 reduction of the PUJ minimum fare in Bicol following the series of rollbacks in fuel prices in the world market since the last quarter of 2014.

The order showed that in a hearing on Candilosas’ petition on Jan. 29, the petitioner cited recent PUJ fare rollbacks the LTFRB has ordered in Metro Manila and other regions in the Philippines.

“If the other well-off regions could have a fare rollback [by as much as] P1, then with more reason a poorer region like Bicol should have [the same,]” the LTFRB order read, quoting Candilosas’ camp.

The LTFRB noted that even the petition’s “oppositor,” led by Alberto G. Darilay, president of a Naga City-based transport group, “sympathized” with the petitioner, and only opposed the amount of the reduction Candilosa requested. Darilay’s camp proposed a 50-centavo reduction instead.

Darilay’s camp pointed out that in 2009, transport groups already voluntarily reduced fares from P8.50 to P8, and have not requested for a fare increase since then, despite increasing fuel prices until the third quarter of 2014.

“In all these, prices of basic commodities and cost of education have skyrocketed, such that drivers and operators can hardly receive decent living wages to support their families,” the LTFRB quoted Darilay’s camp as saying.

The LTFRB order will take effect upon its publication in a national broadsheet.