NEWS

Women's group to SC: Stop mandatory PUV franchise consolidation

Gabriela Baron · Jan 25, 2024, 12:07 PM

Legal tug-of-war A public utility jeepney yields to pedestrians along Padre Burgos Street in Manila yesterday. The PUV modernization battle continues as the Supreme Court decision keeps the wheels turning. Transport groups petitioned for certiorari and injunction, including a temporary restraining order, to prevent implementing the public utility vehicle modernization program. — PHOTOGRAPH BY KING RODRIGUEZ FOR THE DAILY TRIBUNE

A women's group has urged the Supreme Court to stop the mandatory public utility vehicle modernization plan.

Citing the story of Elmer Corder, fondly known as "Tatay Elmer," who has been a jeepney driver for 20 years, GABRIELA made a last-minute call for Supreme Court to stop the implementation of PUVMP which would lead to the phase out of traditional jeepneys.

GABRIELA said 72-year-old "Tatay Elmer" is the lone family member of his family who has a job and as the deadline for PUVMP draws close, hundreds of thousands of Filipino jeepney drivers and operators are seen to lose their jobs.

"In the midst of low wages and lack of decent work, this is how people like Tatay Elmer and hundreds of thousands of PUV drivers, operators and their families will lose their livelihood," Clarice Palce, GABRIELA secretary general, said in a press release Wednesday afternoon.

Palce added that "many children will lose the ability to study or go to school" and that "many Filipinos will sink into the mire of poverty, when they are completely deprived of their livelihood to favor the corporitization of mass transportation."

"We call on the Supreme Court to release a Temporary Restraining Order against Mandatory Franchise Consolidation to save the livelihood of hundred thousand Filipino families," Palce added.

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Wednesday extended until 30 April the deadline for the consolidation of PUVs, which lapsed last 31 December 2023.

The decision came just one week before the initial deadline extension of 31 January.

The PUVMP seeks to modernize and consolidate the fragmented PUV industry and to upgrade or replace PUVs that are older than 15 years to comply with environmental and safety standards.

Individual PUV moderators must consolidate into a transport corporation or cooperative by joining an existing entity or creating a new one with at least 15 PUV operators, to continue operations.