Bus firm suspends trips to BGC to protest drivers’ arrest

SAN PEDRO CITY, Laguna, Philippines — A bus company based in this city has suspended indefinitely its operations in Metro Manila following the series of apprehension of their drivers and confiscation of their licenses, as well as the removal of the buses’ plates, by the Taguig City Traffic Management Office (TMO). Since Wednesday, none of the 14 units of Worthy Transport Inc., each servicing about 8,000 passengers daily, plied its route from its terminal in Pacita Complex here to Market Market mall inside Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig. This would continue until the TMO stops “arresting our drivers,” according to Homer Mercado, company owner. Mercado, in a phone interview on Thursday, said the arrest of the drivers inside the BGC went on for months despite a permit that his company received from the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board on April 20, 2015. The Taguig TMO officers confiscated the bus drivers’ licenses or the vehicles’ plates and fined the company P2,500 to P3,000 for every arrest they made.