“The Love Buses are apparently operating for free but, eventually, the government should collect reasonable charges”
AMIDST the brouhaha surrounding the flood control corruption scandal which continues to take its toll on senior officials, there is a piece of good news emanating from the Palace on public transportation.
This is the revival of the popular Love Bus of the 1970s, which was part of the Metro Manila Transit Corporation bus operations.
But unlike the rest of the bus fleet which had fixed routes, the Love Bus did not have one which gave the MMTC flexibility to field the air conditioned buses on other routes when needed.
At the moment, we do not know how many buses will be eventually fielded or how it will be managed.
The only report that I have come across are the favorable reactions from people who took the buses.
Will it be in the form of a cooperative like the new jeepney program or PUVMP or would it be the nucleus towards the revival of the MMTC itself to be owned and managed by the government to provide affordable public transportation to the public.
Let us hope it will be the later but we will have to wait and see how the DOTr will navigate this very important piece of transportation development and hope that it will do the right thing.
Otherwise, it will be another lost opportunity, not to mention all the money thrown into this project which will go to waste.
Also in the news is the announcement of the new DOTr Secretary directing officials of the department to take public transportation once a week to experience what ordinary citizens are going thru every day.
He further directed them to write a report of their experiences as one of the basis of improving public transportation in the NCR and elsewhere.
That is what we usually term as a pa-cute directive which is common to many of our senior officials nowadays and a lawyer’s way of trying to solve a technical problem.
A transportation engineer would in all probability prefer a technical based approach to the problem.
I would therefore be thoroughly shocked if the DOTr will indeed implement a major public transportation undertaking based on the report of DOTr officials riding a bus, jeepney or LRT once a week.
It would take a lot more technical studies like many transportation and traffic surveys and engineering studies.
But maybe he will because just yesterday, Secretary Giovanni Lopez issued another earth shattering statement, saying our public transportation is magulo and has no system at all. That is from someone who has been part of the DOTr team.
In a way we should be glad that he issued those statements because, now, he has an opportunity and a big challenge to show us what he is made of.
For a start, let’s see how he will use the Love Buses to mitigate the negative effects of the three-day transport strike by FEJODAP and MANIBELA jeepney associations.
Depending on how many Love Buses are available, these buses could completely negate the strike. What is important however, is for the Palace to appoint competent people to manage the operation for the Love Bus fleet for the maximum benefit of the riding public and then provide more funds to increase the buses in sufficient numbers.
The Love Buses are apparently operating for free but, eventually, the government should collect reasonable charges because the cost of operation is expensive and cannot be sustained by the government in the long run.
Besides, I do not think the public is looking for free rides.
What they are after is reasonable rates because that is the essence of public transportation.
It must be cheap and efficient so that the public will be enticed to patronize it.
But if the government will again privatize it which is the favored trend on its part, the cost of taking public transportation becomes expensive and the public would rather save to buy their own vehicles.
Hopefully, Secretary Lopez will consider the revival of the Love Buses as an opportunity to demonstrate his technical competence and use the buses to develop a program that will make our magulong public transportation in the NCR systematic and efficient.
Let’s wish him well.
