The Nagkakaisang Samahan ng Mga Nangangasiwa ng Panlalawigang Bus sa Pilipinas has appealed for the lifting of the ban on provincial buses in the National Capital Region (NCR) and allow them to use their private terminals once again “as a gift” to around 4 million regular bus passengers during the holidays.
Small traders also rely on buses to transport goods from different provinces to the NCR, which helps rev up the economy.
In a news statement, Alejandro Yague, the group’s executive director said provincial bus operation in Metro Manila has been suspended since March 2020 due to Covid-19. But now that Metro Manila is under Alert Level 2 status, the group is appealing to relax the rules that have severely affected not only the transport sector but also the riding public who were deprived to make necessary trips through public utility buses.
With the relaxation of quarantine restrictions, they said it is also high time to allow provincial bus operators and drivers to ply their routes and serve the riding public once more.
The group said around 4 million Filipinos regularly ride buses from Regions 3 and 4A alone to travel to Metro Manila and vice versa.
The industry hires directly approximately 60,000 bus drivers, bus conductors, and office staff, not counting the contractual and support services that include security guards, mechanics, and utility personnel.
The ripple effect of the closure of the provincial bus industry translates to more than 200,000 jobs lost if one considers the loss of jobs of security and janitorial agencies, machine shops, parts and materials suppliers, vendors and concessionaires in the terminals, and other peripheral businesses relying on provincial bus operations.
Under the so-called terminal exchanges, which the Department of Transportation and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) adopted due to the pandemic, passengers coming from the provinces have to disembark in areas too inconvenient to their final destinations in Metro Manila.
Such is the case of passengers coming from Central and Northern Luzon who must get off at the Philippine Sports Arena in Bocaue, Bulacan, which is 30 kilometers away from Metro Manila; or Valenzuela City Gateway Terminal which is likewise a good two to three hours trip to get to their final destination in Metro Manila.
The change in the bus will add at least one to two hours to their trip, causing great inconvenience and wasted time.
This leaves the passengers with no other choice but to take taxicabs or AUVs up to two or three times to get to their final destinations in Metro Manila. Worse, they are forced to cough out additional P2,000 to P3,000 per person in most cases to reach their destination.
According to the group, prolonging the grounding of provincial buses will eventually lead to bankruptcy of bus companies and loss of much-needed revenues on the part of the government due to the inability of the bus companies to service loans, sustain overhead costs like staff, lease, contracts, and other fixed costs, as insistence on using common terminals would lead to higher costs, and fewer riders as passengers will eventually shift to point-to-point or P2P transport services which are allowed to enter Manila with no limitations, or other colorum vans that can do the same.
The group said it is high time for concerned government agencies to relax the rules on provincial bus operation the same way it has relaxed the rules that now allow the public to finally go to and enjoy malls, markets, theaters, theme parks, and other public places to open up the economy. They need public buses to transport these same people whom they would like to patronize these establishments and to be the work force of these establishments.
