Colorum vehicles, or public transport vehicles operating without a franchise that include private vans and cars, took over the routes in the northern and central parts of Luzon from legitimate bus companies, adversely affecting the commercial viability of their fleets.
Bus companies blamed the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board and Land Transportation Office for their financial woes.
The two agencies did not recognize an earlier court ruling stopping the implementation an earlier directive from the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases. The IATF earlier ordered all provincial buses in the northern and central Luzon routes to use a single centralized terminal in the town of Bocaue in Bulacan.
Vincent Rondaris, president of the Nagkakaisang Samahan ng mga Nangangasiwa ng Panlalawigang Bus ng Pilipinas, urged the IATF to allow bus operators to use their private terminals in Metro Manila instead of the designated centralized terminals.
The failure of the LTFRB and LTO to acknowledge the court injunction has prompted law enforcers to arrest bus drivers plying the provincial routes, compounding the financial problems of operators and triggering the proliferation of unauthorized private vehicles to replace the legitimate provincial buses.
Judge Caridad Walse-Lutero of the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City in 2020 granted a writ of preliminary injunction against LTFRB Memorandum Circulars Nos. 2019-031 and MMDA Regulation No. 19-002, which designated central bus terminals in Bocaue, Bulacan; Parañaque City; and Sta Rosa, Laguna.
The Nagkakaisang Samahan ng mga Nangangasiwa ng Panlalawigang Bus Sa Pilipinas Inc. composed of provincial bus firms sought the injunction, while other bus firms joined the petition separately.
Provincial bus firms claimed that because of the stringent conditions, only 10 percent of their bus fleets could go out and operate, adding they are now losing money.
They have state franchises, pay their registration and business permits, and have been operating above the ground. They are losing out to illegal vehicles, the group said.
Bus owners want the government to allow them to operate their private terminals in Metro Manila because they have facilities that could be helpful to passengers and their employees. Drivers have a place where they can sleep before and after their trips.
Rondaris, meanwhile, said the forcible use of the integrated terminals spawned what he described as “pernicious consequences.”
First, the resolution has triggered the use of unfranchised vehicles like private vans and cars, or the so-called “colorum” vehicles, the
unfranchised ones which “do not follow loading capacity, charge unconscionable fares, and fail to comply with minimum health standards,” Rondaris said.
Unfranchised vehicles do not follow loading capacity, charge unconscionable fares, and fail to comply with minimum health standards. Moreover, they do not pay taxes, do not register themselves, and do not issue receipts to constitute the underground economy.
Because colorum vans are unmonitored, there have been fears they have become “superspreaders” of the coronavirus, he said.
