PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has ordered a crackdown on all colorum vehicles nationwide, including arresting their drivers and operators, after visiting the families of the victims of the ill-fated Dimple Star Transport bus accident in Occidental Mindoro on Friday.
“Beginning tomorrow, all drivers will be arrested. I told the police, the highway patrol to find the operators and jail them also,” Duterte said at the 16th founding anniversary of the lumad group Supreme Tribal Council for Peace and Development.
The President also threatened to shoot or kill the drivers and operators who will resist arrest, and to impound their non-registered vehicles.
“If you resist arrest and the lives of the police were in danger, my order to them was to kill you,” Duterte added.
Earlier, the President ordered the arrest of the operator of the Dimple Star bus company after one of its buses fell into a ravine in Occidental Mindoro, killing 19 people and injuring 21 others, Special Assistant to the President Christopher Go said Friday.
Hours later, the operator surfaced and surrendered to the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group headquarters in Manila.
In a series of text messages, Go said the President also ordered the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board to go after companies operating without a license.
The President went to Sablayan town to inspect the site where the passenger bus fell into a ravine.
Duterte’s order to arrest the operator came hours after the LTFRB suspended the operations of 118 buses of Dimple Star for 30 days.
The LTFRB ordered Dimple Star to have its buses checked for road-worthiness and its drivers and conductors to undergo drug testing and a driving seminar.
The LTFRB said Dimple Star’s bus terminals lacks shaded areas where passengers can sit, separate comfort rooms for males and females, priority lanes and communication facilities.
Investigators said the driver of the bus, Arno Panganiban, lost control while traversing the national highway. He was among the fatalities.
The bus had rust all over its body and underneath its flooring.
Senator Grace Poe, chairman of the Senate committee on public services, said she received reports of rampant corruption in the inspection of public utility vehicles, with employees of the Land Transportation Office getting pay-offs.
In many cases, she said, vehicles that were up for renewal of their registration never really underwent any tests.
“Information that reached us said that on paper, motor vehicles undergo and pass the test, but the reality is a number of them were never tested,” she said.
She said a complete inspection of a vehicle, including an emission test, is a requisite to annual registration.
Poe added that she received information that bus companies have designated representatives who deal with LTO employees so that their fleet gets a clean bill of health without testing—for a fee.
This practice, she said, put unsuspecting passengers at risk.
The senator welcomed the 30-day preventive suspension of Dimple Star to allow the authorities to conduct the proper investigation.
She urged the LTFRB to take into account the number of accidents in the past where the Dimple Star buses were involved.
She said that stricter tests should also be done on buses that have notorious accident records.
“Where is the actual testing conducted? In cases where the LTO inspectors go to the garage of bus companies to do the testing and inspection, how sure are we that these inspectors are really doing their job and do not accept bribe money?” she said.
Poe has a pending bill that would create the National Transportation Safety Board that would be the sole agency tasked to look into transportation-related accidents and determining their causes.
She said the passage of the bill would be the first step towards safer roads.
