MMDA unfazed by 1-M signature drive

The head of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) on Sunday shrugged off a commuter group’s goal to gather a million signatures against the centralized bus terminal system in Metro Manila.

“These [protesters] can exercise their right to express their grievances. But they should also offer us viable alternatives,” MMDA Chair Francis Tolentino said in the agency’s weekly radio show.

Tolentino said that on Saturday, he met the Cavite bus operators and drivers who staged a strike two weeks ago to protest the current policy which bans provincial buses plying Cavite and Batangas routes on Metro Manila thoroughfares.

The MMDA runs the Southwest Interim Transport Terminal at the Uniwide reclamation area in Parañaque, which opened last Aug. 6. It is one of the three bus depots that the government intends to set up based on the order of President Aquino.

Tolentino said the bus operators and drivers wanted permission to go as far as Baclaran and Pasay-Rotonda.

“It defeats the purpose of having a terminal. What they want is for us to go back to our habit which is to park anywhere we want,” he added.

The group behind the signature campaign, on the other hand, intends to file charges against MMDA enforcers who allegedly harassed them as they were asking commuters opposed to the government’s centralized bus terminal plan to sign their petition to Aquino.

The Coalition of Filipino Commuters, which is composed of five urban poor groups, launched the “1 million cry of the Filipino commuter” last week.

Perfecto T. Medina, secretary general of the coalition, said that MMDA enforcers seized their members’ identification cards as they were gathering signatures on Roxas Boulevard and in Tagaytay and Silang in Cavite province.