Passengers of multicabs-for-hire in Negros Oriental are unlikely to feel any relief from the much-ballyhooed Pantawid Pampasada program.
The Pantawid Pampasada program, spearheaded by the Department of Energy, is supposed to be a government program that gives fuel subsidies for public utility vehicles, but did not list passenger multicabs as among its beneficiaries.
DOE Region 7 Director Antonio Labios admitted that the multicabs are not included in the list of beneficiaries, which only lists down jeepneys and tricycles. Under the program, jeepney operators will receive a yearly assistance of P1,050 through Pantawid Pasada cards, while tricycle operators will receive P150 cash assistance for every valid franchise.
Jeepneys? Hello? In case some people from the DOE are still sitting in their ivory towers, jeepneys (as we knew them before) are a thing of the past, at least in Negros Oriental. Here, the multicabs rule the short-distance routes. And it’s not like these multicabs are a new invention. These second-hand three-cylinder vehicles, also called “surplus” vehicles, which entered the country in pieces but were expertly assembled and improved on by Filipinos, have been here before the turn of the century.
They have taken the place of jeepneys, if some DOE planners have to know.
But it’s not surprising why DOE seems out of touch because this seems to be a common shortcoming of many central planners who mostly happen to just circulate in Manila (where multicabs are almost non-existent).
There’s more to the Philippines than just Manila. It would be good to see those “central planners” come down their thrones and mix with the hoi polloi from time to time.
