Student activists, jeepney drivers protest together against PUV phaseout

By Jose Angelo Ycasiano and Madeleen Saguid

Student activists from the University of the Philippines (UP) joined transport groups Piston and Manibela to protest against the Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP) last week Monday, March 6.

The strike against the PUVMP carried out by various transport groups was a result of the highly controversial revision of the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) Department Order 2017-011, which defines the rules and requirements of the PUVMP.

In an article by Maria Viktoria Viado from the Philippine Information Agency, the program aims to align Philippine public transportation to global standards, making them “safe, reliable, convenient, and environmentally sustainable.”

But what transport groups and activists are concerned about regarding the order is the condition that individual operators of traditional jeepneys are to stop operations if they fail to comply with the cooperative by December 31, 2023, a deadline that was extended after the announcement of the strike.

Unfair

Elmer Cordero, one of the jeepney drivers from the transport group Piston, joined the protests against the PUVMP. In an interview with NEO, Cordero said jeepney drivers like him are fighting for unfair wages.

Despite the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) raising the minimum fare of jeepneys to P12-14 back in October 2022, increasing prices due to inflation have made things more difficult for jeepney drivers like him.

“Ang presyo ng mga bilihin tumataas pero yung pasada namin hindi kasi nga ito (traditional jeepneys) ay para sa lahat,” he explained.

During the first two years of the pandemic, jeepney drivers were also required to stop, and their concerns were only increased by the jeepney phaseout order's resurgence.

“Napakahirap ng kalagayan ng mga mananakay. Noong pandemic nahinto kami ng dalawang taon, ngayon ipe-phase out naman kami,” Cordero said.

In an article from Bloomberg, the DOTr stated that only 70 percent of jeepney drivers in Manila resumed operations by the end of November 2020.

UP student-activist Mira Llanieta also argued that the jeepney modernization program is more disadvantageous than it is beneficial, whether that is either through economic, environmental, or, especially, cultural means.

Llanieta explained that the modernization program only benefits richer operators who can buy the P2.6 million units.

“It’s actually beneficial to those who are wealthy enough to buy the minimum of 15 units per fleet, with each unit amounting to around P2.6 million, and it is only beneficial for foreign countries that sell their used units to [the Philippines],” Llanieta told NEO.

Drivers’ demands for gov’t support

Jeepney drivers like Cordero demanded that the government should help jeepney drivers by giving them subsidies and returning the five-year franchise for their jeepneys.

Back in March 2022, the LTFRB granted P701.5 million worth of fuel subsidies to jeepney drivers due to the oil price hikes.

Piston also said that the current PUVMP is “burying poor drivers and small-time operators in debt.”

Mody Floranda, national president of Piston, also said in an interview on radio dzBB last month that following the streak of rising fuel prices at the end of 2022, jeepney drivers are only now able to take home from P300 to P400 of their daily income to their families, which is far from the estimated family living wage of around P1,100.

Preserving identity

While Llanieta talked about how the modernization program becomes a disadvantage for students like her, she also mentioned that removing jeepneys meant removing a piece of the Philippine identity.

“There are the practical disadvantages, but there’s also the cultural aspect that many students are passionate about since jeepneys are symbolic and reflect the Philippine culture. Phasing them out and replacing them with, essentially, minibusses that are uniform with different countries just makes us lose our identity,” Llanieta said.

Jeepneys have been around since the end of the second World War, coming from the Willys Jeeps abandoned by American soldiers. These jeeps were modified to have longer benches on the back to carry more people.

Llanieta also said that while the DOTr promised that the modern jeepneys would be more environmentally friendly, she argued that the minibusses that are currently being used are equipped with Euro-4 engines, despite the global standard being Euro-6.

“If you notice the white minibusses being used today, you can see that it uses Euro-4 engines pasted on the back. However, the global standard is Euro-6. What [foreign countries] are essentially doing is selling used units, packaging it as so-called modernization when it is just a scheme for them to get rid of said used units,” she explained.

RAC, a European publication on vehicles, stated in an article that Euro-6 standards for diesel engines required carbon monoxide (CO) emissions to be at 0.50g/km. In comparison, Euro-4 standards for diesel engines required CO emissions to be at 1.0g/km, a 50 percent increase.

Reconsideration

The supposed weeklong strike ended three days early as President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. agreed to review the PUVMP.

"The president ordered the DOTr and [LTFRB] to use the extension of the deadline for consolidation until December 31, 2023 to again study the provisions under Department Order No. 2017-011 or the Omnibus Franchising Guidelines," said the Palace in a statement on March 7.

Transport group Manibela was one of the groups to first suspend the weeklong strike. Manibela president Mar Valbuena announced this in a press conference alongside Floranda after their dialogue with Presidential Communications Office Secretary Cheloy Garafil on the night of March 7.

"Our group Manibela is at one with the aim of the government to provide a proper, comfortable and safe transportation to the public. We are not going against the planned modernization of the vehicles, we just wish that we do it humanely and justly so that no one gets left behind," Valbuena said.

The Piston leader also said that part of their negotiations with the government is to include the public transportation sector in studying the provisions of the executive order under the omnibus processing guidelines and that they would be closely monitoring what Marcos said regarding the reconsideration.

"Like what we said in the negotiations, our call is for the total junking of the [Department Order] 2017-011 because as long as it's there, our worries will go away," Floranda said.

Floranda also said that the aforementioned vehicles are still too expensive and put people's livelihoods at stake with the current setup.