Taxicab woes

Egay Uy .

THERE are taxi drivers in Cagayan de Oro that have observably transformed into their counterparts in Metro Manila —  they do not know their way around town.

When I was a young lawyer of a private company, I used to travel to Manila for hearings at the Energy Regulatory Commission, or meetings in the head office in Pasig, or for other business-related trips. Oftentimes, a service vehicle was assigned to us, but there were difficult days when we had to struggle around town on our own.

The worst that could do us in was when we had to go to a mall after office hours. Hailing a taxi to ferry us to the staff house was always an ordeal because there were no Grab units then – or probably there were but I did know how to use the app. Most, if not all, drivers of taxicabs we hailed from the mall either had an appointment where to rush to, had to go home in the opposite direction, or had to negotiate for additional exorbitant fare.

Being able to have a taxi driver agree to ferry us to our destination does not end the ordeal. The taxicab drivers almost always do not know the address where we wanted to go or do not know the way to that direction and had to ask the probinsyano passenger, “Saan tayo dadaan, Sir?”  How the hell would the probinsyano know?

Back to Cagayan de Oro.  At about 11 o’clock in the morning, I hailed a taxicab at Lourdes College last week to attend a meeting at VIP Hotel. I left my ride at City Hall because of parking problems around meeting venue.

Frankly, I regretted having hailed that taxi unit. It was dilapidated and figuratively a rolling coffin. The underchassis always sent rattling sound as if the wheel bearings, tie rod ends, bushings, joints, and all, needed immediate replacement. The interior was unkempt and there were even footprints on the dashboard.

But these are not the reasons I have concluded earlier the transformation of local taxicab drivers. The driver of that heaven-forsaken taxicab appeared to have believed he made me take his “ignorance” hook, line, and sinker.  He told me he used to frequent the city from his hometown somewhere in western Misamis Oriental, and that he was driver of that dilapidated unit that allegedly belonged to his brother in-law for only a month.

I had to interview (short of cross-examining) him why he did not know the way to the VIP Hotel from Lourdes College near the City Hall.  And my conclusion: the driver was a disgrace to the taxicab operators and drivers in Cagayan de Oro City. That the unit has no subsisting franchise or provisional authority from the LTFRB is even a bonus.

(Egay Uy is a lawyer. He chairs the City’s Regulatory and Complaint Board, co-chairs with the city mayor the City Price Coordinating Council, and chairs the city’s Joint Inspection Team.  He retired as a vice president of Cepalco.)