MALACAÑANG may suspend classes in all levels in Metro Manila for a week if the transport group Pinagkaisang Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Operators Nationwide goes ahead with its strike, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said Monday.
Piston, the biggest transport group in the country, on Monday threatened to stage a much bigger strike to protest the government’s plan to phase out jeepneys.
But Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board member Aileen Lizada on Monday warned that the licenses of jeepney drivers who will join transport strikes will be canceled.
She told a radio interview that the LTFRB had canceled the licenses of drivers and franchises of operators who joined past jeepney strikes.
“We have canceled franchises,” Lizada said.
Meanwhile, Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio on Monday ordered all courts nationwide to dismiss staff earlier than usual as a result of the jeepney strike, Supreme Court spokesman Theodore Te said.
Te said the high court, Court of Appeals, Court of Tax Appeals, Sandiganbayan and trial courts were ordered to end work at 2 p.m.
The executive judges in the trial courts and front-line offices in the other mentioned courts were ordered to maintain a skeleton force, he said.
Some schools in Metro Manila were suspended after Piston struck to protest the jeepney modernization program.
And when Piston pushes through with its threat to continue its nationwide strike, despite its unsuccessful staging today, we will call for a class suspension in Metro Manila starting tomorrow, March 20, until Friday, March 23, Roque told reporters.
But he said it was up to the other local government units affected by the strike to suspend classes in their respective areas.
“Appeal for patience and understanding, especially to those commuters who were duly inconvenienced by the strike,” Roque said.
He said the government remained committed to modernize public utility vehicles and would continue with the modernization program.
“See this as one of the long-term solutions to rid our streets of dilapidated and smoke-belching jeepneys,” Roque said.
