Today, January 20, 2020, The Senate hosted a public hearing about the Motorcycle Taxi situation to clear up some details. One of the most glaring was the announcement made by the New Technical Working Group that starting Monday next week they will start apprehending motorcycle taxi drivers since they have recommended that the Pilot run be scrapped due to them being able to implement the new guidelines since they were facing legal impediments and that they was a lack of data in the initial 6 month pilot run, also included in their report to the DOTr was the blacklisting of Angkas due to violations in the pilot run guidelines.
Another glaring issue that was brought up was the arbitrary cap of 10,000 riders for each provider that was brought to a halt by a TRO from a Mandaluyong court. When asked by the various senators during the hearing, all the TWG could say was that the cap of 10,000 per company was made so it would facilitate the collection of information and data easier so that the data would not be sabog. Even though the Philippine Competition Commission had already suggested to the TWG that a multi hosting setup wold be more feasible for everyone and foster competition.
When asked by the senators why the TWG suddenly decided to discontinue the Pilot run was because the TWG was encountering legal impediments sa implementation of the guidelines nila at ayaw sumunod ni angkas and lack of data. When asked by Senator Pimentel, did the lone participant in the initial participant submit reports and data, they said yes. Did you verify the data? No, because we had problems with the data from other government agencies.
If you were able to watch the various live streams and coverage, you would be able to notice that most of the senator were visibly upset with the current TWG on how they have handled the situation with Senator Marcos saying Heneral po kayo, pero in this case ibig sabihin kaya cancel na kasi suko na kayo?
Senator Ralph Recto even went on saying, Kaya kayo na TTRO kasi nakapaarbitrary nyo at kulang kayo sa public consultations. And later on, kayo na nga ang mali mali ang ginagawa, e kayo pa ang galit?
Senator Poe even said kung gusto may paraan, kung ayaw may dahilan, e ang dating e ayaw nyo kasi gumaganti kayo.
One question that wasnt answered was why was the original TWG disbanded and why were the private entities other groups removed as members and made into observers? Many members of the original TWG lamented that they were excluded and not even notified of the changes.
In the end, the TWG said that they will review everything this week and provide a recommendation again before monday next week.
In other news after the hearing, the TWG issued a statement which you can read here which was posted on their fb page around 6 pm https://www.facebook.com/ltfrb.central.office/posts/2516817898560123
In a separate note, Senator Bong Go who was also present during the hearing said that the pilot run for motorcycle taxis will continue despite the earlier decision of the Department of Transportation Technical Working Group to terminate their study on motorcycle taxi services.
So what will happen to the motorcycle taxi industry? Find out soon as congress is supposed to have a hearing on wednesday.
