LAWMAERS on Monday raised their opposition to the anticipated fare increase in Light Rail Transit (LRT) Lines 1 and 2 and the Metro Railway Transit (LRT), which, the transportation department said over the weekend, will be implemented on January 4.
Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) Rep. Sherwin T. Gatchalian of Valenzuela City, senior vice chairman of House Committee on Metro Manila Development, said the government should solve first the frequent breakdowns due to mismanagement before the implementation of the fare increases ranging from 50 percent to 87 percent.
“Instead of raising MRT and LRT fares, the government should first improve the services of the mass transport system amid frequent glitches and a serious accident last August, where 40 passengers were injured after a wayward MRT train rammed through metal railings and a lamp post at Taft Avenue station,” Gatchalian said.
According to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), the fare increases are aimed at reducing the P12 billion in annual subsidies by about P2 billion, saying the P2 billion was equivalent to 8,240 classrooms, or 11,440 hectares of irrigated farmlands.
The DOTC said the government was subsidizing about 60 percent of the fares for LRT 1 and 2, and about 75 percent of the fares for MRT 3. The LRT1 fares were last increased in 2003, while LRT 2’s fares have not been adjusted. MRT 3 fares were lowered from P17 to P34 in 1999 to P12 to P20 in 2000. The current fares range from P10 to P15.
Moreover, Gatchalian said the impending MRT and LRT fare hike will wipe out whatever benefits ordinary Filipinos were able to reap with the continuous drop in prices of gasoline and petroleum products and the recent rollback in electricity rates.
“The government did not even wait for the holiday season to pass before announcing the planned increase for MRT and LRT fares,” he said.
“This will definitely neutralize the positive effects of the recent jeepney-fare rollback, as well as the impending rollback in taxi and bus fares,” Gatchalian added.
Unnecessary and untimely
A neophyte lawmaker on Monday called on the DOTC to defer the unnecessary and untimely LRT and MRT fare increase next month.
This came amid unmet public expectations to improve even the basic facilities of the train system.
“We must remember that a mass transport system, such as the MRT, is an essential government service. The fare increase is an added insult and an injustice to the suffering riding public, whose very lives are put on the line everyday,” Sen. Grace Poe said in a news statement.
“The sorry state of the MRT brought about to a large extent by government mismanagement and ineptness cannot justify an increase. The government is obligated to maintain the subsidy until the system’s services and safety are upgraded,” she said.
Based on the new fare matrices issued by the DOTC on Saturday, rates for end-to-end trips in MRT 3 will increase to P28 from P15 (from North Avenue to Taft Avenue and vice versa); P30 from P20 in LRT 1 (from Baclaran to Roosevelt and vice versa); and P25 from P15 in LRT 2 (from Recto to Santolan and vice versa).
The announcement came at a time when the MRT 3 and LRT Lines 1 and 2 are accorded substantial government assistance in the soon-to-be signed General Appropriations Act, which includes the amounts of P4.65 billion in subsidy—P7.94 billion for MRT rehabilitation and P4.67 in unpaid MRT taxes.
The newly approved bicameral version of the supplemental budget, which will be immediately carried out in 2015, has the following items: P1.21 billion for MRT rehabilitation and capacity extension and P728 million rehabilitation fund for LRT 1 and 2.
“While the MRT and LRT is in Metro Manila, the riders of these trains are mostly wage earners, whose contribution to the national economy is far reaching and impacts productivity,” Poe said.
Poe led a public hearing of the Senate public services subcommittee on transportation on the pressing need to rehabilitate MRT’s rail system, calling on officials and stakeholders to lose no time to discuss solutions to the MRT challenges that imperil commuters’ safety.
“The sub-committee in the last four months conducted three public hearings on the MRT issues. Almost all issues from the basic maintenance concerns to ownership of the kind of trains that we will procure in the coming years were all discussed,” she said.
“Considering that they have a date already to implement a new fare system, they should have volunteered it in the last hearing. But they did not. How could they be so insensitive to the millions of commuters and MRT, LRT riders?”
“When was the last time they conducted a consultation”? she asked.
Who stands to benefit?
ONLY big business and banks will benefit from the approved fare increases in the country’s three major mass transport lines, Party-list Rep. Terry L. Ridon of Kabataan said on Monday.
“The Aquino [administration] is shameless in proceeding with this Mass Rail Transit-Light Rail Transit fare hike. It seems the periodic interest payments and increased financial viability are what motivates the Aquino administration to proceed with the fare hikes instead of public service,” he added.
“Had Mr. Aquino been listening to public opinion, it would have been easy for these government financial institutions [GFIs] to simply cut back on their earnings for the sake of the public,” he said.
Meanwhile, fare increases in the LRT are only meant to “cover for the profits of the private operator.”
“This has precisely been our warning even before the LRT 1 privatization was under way: There will most certainly be a fare increase to cover for the profits of the private operator. We should recall that, under the current LRT 1 tariff, LRT 1 is not losing money. In fact, its revenue is sufficient to proceed with operations,” he noted.
“The only logical reason for the fare increase is the adjustment in favor of private profit. This, without even releasing a single centavo yet for infrastructure,” Ridon said.
With Recto Mercene and Marvyn Benaning