A congressman from the Bicol region on Monday assailed the prohibition on the operation of for-hire tricycles on national highways saying that the ban “fails every test of socio-economic justice,” and branded it “both pro-rich and anti-poor.”
The Department of the Interior and Local Government earlier issued Memorandum Circular 2020-036 that bans tricycles from national highways due to safety issues.
Albay Rep. Jose Maria Clemente Salceda urged the department to withdraw the resolution saying: “The ban is extremely unjust and it fails every test of reason, data-driven logic, socioeconomic justice, and local autonomy.”
Salceda, chairman of the House committee on ways and means, predicted: “Like all regulations that do not take into account actual human experience, it will fail massively.”
In a House resolution that calls for the withdrawal of the Memorandum Circular and urges the Committee on Transportation to conduct hearings to come up with better alternatives, Salceda called tricycles “the only source of livelihood for hundreds of thousands of Filipino families.”
“These 4.5 million tricycles pay road users tax at almost P1.2 billion every year and pay excise tax and VAT on fuel amounting to around P52 billion per year which partly funds the enormous budget of the DPWH at P650 billion,” the resolution said.
Salceda also cited figures which indicate that tricycles and motorcycles are actually safer than other vehicles.
“Sensationalized lang, kasi may bias tayo sa motor, dahil nakalantad sa daan kapag may aksidente, pero look at the data, you are actually in 300 percent more danger when you ride or encounter a vehicle other than a motorcycle or a tricycle,” Salceda said.
He said that the 2017 World Health Organization’s and the Land Transportation Office’s Philippines motorcycle or tricycle related deaths of 5,970 with an estimated total number of units of 7,023,529 or 0.085 percent mortality rate as compared to all other vehicles’ mortality of 11,264 for the total 3,994,326 for 0.282 percent casualty rate.
In his resolution, Salceda provides that “data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) in 2015 shows that the majority of cars (56 percent) are owned by the wealthiest 10 percent of the population, and as a tricycle ban is pro-car, it would be a policy that manages to be both pro-rich and anti-poor, thus failing every test of socioeconomic justice.”
Salceda also said that “vulnerable segments of the population like persons with disabilities (PWDs), pregnant women, and senior citizens are essentially served by the end-to-end service of tricycles, emphasizing the need for the safety of necessary tricycles from cars, and not the safety of cars from tricycles.”
“The logic of the ban fails so obviously and so completely, that it should be withdrawn immediately and be buried in the archives,” Salceda said.
Salceda is joined by transport and labor groups on Monday who also questioned the same DILG memo.
Members of the National Public Transport Coalition, led by the National Confederation of Tricycle and Transport Operators and Drivers Association of the Philippines and Lawyers for Commuters Safety and Protection filed a Declaratory Relief petition to oppose a memorandum banning tricycles in national highways and major roads, at the Quezon City Regional Trial Court.
The petitioners were represented by their legal counsels, Lawyers Madel Ramos and Ariel Inton.
The said petition questions the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Memorandum 2020-036 which orders total ban and prohibition of tricycles in national highways and major roads nationwide.
The groups also asked to hold in abeyance the implementation of the DILG memorandum as they called for a moratorium on apprehensions against the ranks of tri-wheel drivers and operators.
They also expressed fear that the said DILG policy will be used by the government to introduce Euro 4-compliant multicab units that will replace their tricycles in operating as public utility vehicles.
Defend Jobs Philippines expressed support to the demands of tricycle drivers for the sake of the protection of their livelihoods.
The group claimed that as tricycles consist 60 percent of the payers of Roads Users’ Tax amongst PUVs, the government must stop repressing and attacking the livelihoods of poor and small tricycle operators and drivers across the country.
“We appeal for the government to show compassion and have some concern for our poor countrymen who rely their livelihoods in tricycles. These tri-wheel drives are the primary sources of income of these small tricycle drivers and operators to feed their families,” said Thadeus Ifurung, Defend Jobs Philippines spokesperson.
“This particular attack against this tri-wheel mode of transport adds-up to the growing number of anti-transport, anti-commuters and anti-poor policies being implemented by the government against the public transportation sector and the welfare of our riding public in general,” Ifurung added.