ECONOMIC RECOVERY REMAINS DISTANT BECAUSE OF LACK OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT

By Ba Ipe 

“MOBILITY is not a human need. It is a basic right.” Nikki Coseteng, a former senator and street parliamentarian, uttered these words in her opening statement in a recent media forum to stress the constitutional right to travel for every person.

Coseteng could not help but feel indignant at the current transport mess that springs from the abject lack of public transport. The public transport sector appears to have collapsed due to public policies that prohibit legitimate bus firms from fielding their bus fleets.

Economic recovery is a function of mobility. The freer movement of goods and services (people) ensures and hastens economic recovery. With lessened mobility, recovery is inconceivable. Mobility requires public transport services, which should be made available in the spirit of competition, where the most efficient is obtained at the least cost.

The Covid-19 pandemic is the convenient excuse for the government to stop legitimate bus firms from fielding their buses in the routes between Metro Manila and provinces, triggering the rise of illegal vehicles and limiting the movements of most citizens.

The erratic public policies on public transport have contributed to the slowdown, enabling the national economy to post the sharpest postwar economic decline in 2020 and 2021. While recovery is on sight, it has been dismally slow because of lack of public transport.

Coseteng was quick to lay the blame squarely on the Duterte government, which has come out with policies that effectively deprive the people of legitimate public transport. According to her, the government legitimate bus firms to use the government-sponsored central bus terminals for buses traversing between Metro Manila and the provinces.

But the central terminals in Bocaue, Bulacan and Sta. Rosa, Laguna have been inaccessible for passengers, who want to go to the provinces in Luzon. They do not have the facilities for waiting passengers and for tired bus drivers, who want to rest in between their trips.

Going from any point in Metro Manila to the central bus terminals has been most inconvenient for provincial bus passengers. They have to travel first for 30 kilometers to the bus terminals just to catch a bus that goes to Pampanga, Laguna, or elsewhere.

This is simply insane, according to Coseteng. It does not make sense, she said with an air of condescension on the quality of public policies the Department of Transportation has been coming out. Moreover, this situation is being compounded by the subsequent arrests of provincial buses that do not use the central terminals. According to Coseteng, the owner of each provincial bus is being asked to pay a fine of P1 million for entering Metro Manila.

She has put a P2 million bet on Arturo Tugade and other transport officials to take daily public transport for 30 days to see for themselves the current public transport woes. Tugade has remained silent.

The emergence of illegal vehicles, or the so-called “colorums,” has been a bane. Illegal vans and cars have replaced the public provincial buses on the streets. Since they are unregulated and form part of the underground economy, the colorums charge as much as triple the usual regulated of the provincial buses.

They do not register and ergo do not pay taxes and other state fees, do not issue receipts in their operations, and are not totally known to the government. They are said to be owned by local officials, their relatives, and their dummies. Military and police generals were said to be owners of those illegal vans.

The people have to rely on public transport because 90 percent of all households nationwide do not own cars or any other vehicles. Transport specialists argued on the necessity to enhance the public, rich or poor, to take public transport. But this is easier than done.

For her part, Coseteng, an advocate of a more liberal approach on public transport, argued that economic recovery would remain difficult because of lack of public transport. “We have not learned our lessons. We have remained difficult,” she said with an air of frustration.