By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent .
THE city council has passed a resolution this week to call on the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) to suspend the implementation of the taxi-fare increase in the city.
This came as Councilor Teodulfo Lao Jr. cried foul over the LTFRB’s move to increase taxi fares without public consultations.
Lao, chairman of the city council’s public utilities committee, said the LTFRB move caught everyone by surprise because there was no clear effort to allow the commuting public to state what they think about it.
He said that while the taxi flagdown rate remained at P40, the additional P2 per minute or the P13.50 for every kilometer was “too much.”
In a dispatch from the city council, Lao was quoted as criticizing the LTFRB over the lack of information dissemination to make the public aware of the move to increase taxi fares.
Many people have been complaining because an increase of roughly 50 percent in taxi fares was no longer affordable to many, he said.
Lao pointed out that there was a need for LTFRB to call for public consultations given the recent increases in the prices of basic commodities.
He said there was also a petition to increase public jeepney fares in the city, and the impact, if approved, would hurt commuters.
“Imagine the current prices of commodities plus the current prices of gasoline and other petroleum products and the fare increases,” Lao was quoted as saying.
In a city council dispatch, Councilor Nadya Elipe proposed that owners of public vehicles and representatives of commuters be invited by the city council’s committee on public utilities so that it could also hear their side.
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