A party-list legislator on Wednesday said that motorcycle taxi operator Angkas had no business questioning the decision of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board to reduce its fleet of riders from 30,000 to 10,000 and should even be thankful that they were allowed to operate even without any governing law.
For one, Puwersa ng Bayaning Atleta Party-list Rep. Jericho Nograles said that documents showing Angkas was 98 percent foreign owned could already serve as basis to shut down its entire operation because their operation was a clear violation of the Constitution which requires that all public utility companies should be 60 percent Filipino owned.
Nograles said that the operation of Angkas was just a pilot stage and was not covered by any government franchise like all public conveyances and therefore the LTFRB could take any action they see fit to protect public interest.
And since Angkas is on a “test mode” and is provisionary in nature, Nograles said that the motorcyle taxi hailing app operator had no choice but to follow the directives of the LTFRB or they could be slapped with hefty fines for violation of existing law governing public conveyances.
Nograles said that the LTFRB could fine Angkas P6,000 per motorcycle per day for operating without any franchise.
Nograles lamented that the absence of any law that governs the operation of these ride-hailing services such as Grab and Angkas is largely responsible for the confusion in relation to their existence and therefore, it is paramount for Congress to expedite the deliberation and the passage of measures that would set the parameters on the nature of their operation.
Nograles also advised Angkas that apart from complying with the directive of the LTFRB to bring down the number of their riders to just 10,000 from the 27,000 riders, it should also address their issue on ownership because this too could be used as a basis to shut them down.