FIRING LINE: Jeep drivers’ issue is more than ₱15

By Robert B. Roque Jr.

Tomorrow, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) is hearing the inevitable: the fare hike petition from jeepney drivers. For two years now, jeepney drivers have been lobbying to raise the minimum fare to ₱15.

During this back-and-forth play, what has been in effect is a ₱13 provisional increase. But with inflation biting every Filipino in the back, jeepney drivers have grown tired of the canned response to their plight — that setting fares is a difficult balancing of interests.

This corner is not one to tell the LTFRB what to do, although it’s hard not to say that the bigger culprit here is the national government’s inaction on runaway fuel prices.

So far, the Marcos government has not stepped in with direct subsidies or, at the very least, tax relief on fuel for public utility vehicles. Perhaps, this is an issue the President should confront before opening his mouth at campaign rallies for his administration’s Senate slate.

Manny’s comeback

Last week, Manny Pacquiao’s convoy was caught illegally using the EDSA bus lane. His security detail, like obedient minions, apologized, accepted the ticket, and assured the public that their boss had “nothing to do with it.”

I don’t mean to diminish our sports hero heralded as our “Pambansang Kamao.” But tough as he is in the ring, why does Manny seem to have so little control over his own team? Unless of course he is feigning cluelessness.

It gives me the same confusion as in 2022 when he ran for president and slammed the idea of the Filipino nation electing another Marcos. He went as far as stating that corruption made Bongbong Marcos unfit for office.

Fast forward to today, and Pacquiao is now running for the Senate under Marcos’s administration ticket. If Manny believes now that Marcos’s government is free of corruption and clean as a whistle, then maybe he’s lying or simply a fool — neither of which makes him worthy of a Senate comeback.

*         *         *

SHORT BURSTS. For comments or reactions, email firingline@ymail.com or tweet @Side_View via X. Read current and past issues of this column at http://www.thephilbiznews.com