EXCEPT for one, all other senators find it rather imperative for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to seriously consider suspending the implementation of the Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP).
In adopting Senate Resolution 1096, members of the Senate asked the President to address “valid and urgent concerns” of various stakeholders including the jeepney drivers and unions before pushing through with PUVMP.
Under the PUVMP, jeepney operators are required to consolidate their franchises under a transport cooperative. However, the idea doesn’t sit well for small operators who do not want to lose individual ownership of units.
Data provided under SR 1096 noted that 36,217 PUV units or around 19 percent of PUVs and other vehicles remained “unconsolidated” after the government deadline expired on April 30, 2024, amid what the senators claimed was due to the insufficiency of the government’s information drive to educate drivers, operators, and transport groups about the program.
Another reason, they added, is the “burden of financing the cost of modern PUVs, which greatly exceeds the financial capacity of drivers and operators.”
“These small stakeholders, particularly the drivers, who remain unconsolidated, are effectively forced out of their livelihoods with most of them expressing that the only skill they have is driving,” the resolution said.
“Those who did not participate in the consolidation are now considered as colorum or operating illegally and run the risk of being fined and their vehicles impounded should the drivers continue to ply their routes.”
Moreover, only 174 of 1,574 local government units have approved their Local Public Transport Route Plan (LPTRP). The deadline to fully comply with the complete LPTRs is up to 2026.
But importantly, the Senate doesn’t agree on the potential phaseout of the “iconic jeepney design in favor of the so-called modern jeepneys which according to them are actually imported mini-buses. (ANGEL F. JOSE)
