Piston protest set MAY 22: Our jeepneys won’t be scraps

Don’t hold your breath for cleaner air, as the DENR has been a laggard in adopting cleaner fuel standards. A 10-fold cut in sulfur emissions has been pushed back to 2016. INQUIRER file photo

Jeepney drivers and operators led by transport group Piston are set to hold a nationwide protest caravan on Monday against the government’s upcoming “scrappage” program for aging public utility vehicles.

Piston president George San Mateo said the caravan would reiterate their rejection of the “modernization program” being pushed by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, which the group dismissed as mere euphemism for the phaseout of jeepneys.

“This protest is also to show our fellow drivers and operators that the LTFRB has fooled us into thinking that there would be no phaseout,” he said in a press briefing. “We have spent for jeepney repairs, but in the end they would chop up our jeepneys.”

LTFRB chair Martin Delgra III earlier said the scrappage program would be launched before yearend to retire public utility jeepneys aged 15 years and older.

But San Mateo argued that “if jeepneys have become dilapidated, they should be rehabilitated and not scrapped.”

Replacing them with the e-jeeps being promoted by the government would cost operators around P1.4 to P1.6 million for each unit, he said.

Jeepney drivers and operators are not “antisafety” and are willing to repair and rehabilitate their vehicles, the Piston leader stressed.—JHESSET O. ENANO