Transport groups told: Stop buying from abusive oil firms

BAGUIO CITY—While the transport sector needs to increase fare in light of successive increases in fuel prices, drivers and operators nationwide should unite to demand better terms from oil firms and boycott those that continue to abuse pricing, the chair of a transport party-list group said.

Lawyer Vigor Mendoza, head of transport group 1-Utak, said public utility jeeps (PUJ) could use a fare increase to improve the efficiency of their vehicles, reduce pollution and improve road safety. PUJ groups have petitioned for a P2 fare increase in the wake of new increases in fuel costs.

Mendoza, however, said the transport group is also a potent force that could demand better terms from oil firms.

The industry’s best option, he said, is still to unite to force oil firms “to come and negotiate with us.”

Mendoza, former 1-Utak representative, said the root of the sector’s problems would always be economic. It should not agree when oil firms try to soften the impact of price increases through promotional gimmicks, he said.

When the sector accepts a promotional gimmick, “oil companies just laugh at our efforts to improve,” he said.

A transport group based here served as an inspiration when drivers and operators agreed to buy fuel only from one supplier that accepted their terms.

“I don’t want to beg from oil companies. I want them to come and negotiate and beg from us,” he said.

Mendoza said 400,000 public utility vehicles choosing to buy fuel only from a single dealer, and not from an abusive rival firm, would change the fuel pricing system in the country.

He said the public, however, must see in a positive light the latest petition to increase PUJ fare.

PUJs, he said, could use the fare increase to shift to clean fuel sources and use electronic systems to improve traffic flow and road safety.

Speaking at a forum here, Mendoza said a P2 fare increase would be the highest in recent years. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon