MORE reasons for unregistered public utility vehicles (PUVs) to think twice before plying the streets.
The Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) in the region is not giving up on its campaign against colorum vehicles and vowed stricter apprehensions, with the National Government backing the campaign.
With President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s move for the elimination of colorum vehicles, DOTC-Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) Regional Head Federico Mandapat said the campaign against unlicensed vehicles in the region will be done more sternly.
Arroyo’s eighth State of the Nation Address (Sona) delivered on Monday apparently vindicated DOTC’s relentless drive on colorum vehicles.
“We will all the more have reasons to pursue our campaign,” said Mandapat, who has been pressing for the eradication of colorum taxis, jeepneys and vans, when he first assumed his post last year.
His unrelenting stance against colorum earned him the ire of illegal PUV drivers and operators, but he remained unperturbed.
In 2007, the DOTC apprehended 84 colorum vehicles. From January to July this year, Mandapat reported the agency was able to apprehend 129 illegally operating PUVs.
Mandapat’s anti-colorum campaign got a boost when Arroyo, in her Sona, gave emphasis on the battle against colorum and extortion, as a means of increasing a driver’s income.
President Arroyo said eliminating colorum vehicles and extortion could increase a driver’s profit from P200 to P500 per day, as cited in the case of a Manila-based jeepney driver, who was among the persons who got a special mention during the Sona.
She made the assertion while several operators and drivers associations in the country continue to assail her position on the non-lifting of value added tax (VAT) on oil products, claimed by the transport sector as the major culprit that robs them of their income.
