Pursuant to Memorandum Circular No. 2015-017, Provisional Authorities or PAs to operate Transport Network Vehicle Service (TNVS) were issued to applicant members of Uhop Company by DOTr-CAR Regional Director Atty. Jose Eduardo Natividad. The said Provisional Authorities authorize the grantee to operate TNVS Service and to carry passengers on the route: Baguio City to any point of Luzon and Vice Versa, pending approval of their filed CPC applications.
Supposedly, these Provisional Authorities have a life of only forty five (45) days after which they should already be operating on the basis of Certificates of Public Convenience issued to them by the LTFRB en banc in Quezon City, since these applications are of inter-regional character of which DOTr-CAR has no jurisdiction to grant.
Question is, why are these Uhop units still operating even when their respective Provisional Authorities have expired after the lapse of 45 days? Since these PAs were no longer renewed by the DOTr-CAR, isn’t it the duty of the law enforcing unit of LTO which we call the “Flying Squad” to apprehend and impound these units as required under Joint Administrative Order No. 2014-01 which put a price of P200,000 per unit of van as penalty for operating without a franchise or as colorum.
Because DOTr-CAR is not doing anything to address this violation of the rules, is this is not a confirmation that DOTr-CAR has truly been taken, similarly as when they were taken when it allowed these vans to operate even without having filed any application to operate as TNVS Service or have not been issued Provisional Authorities? We understand that each Uhop member was assessed and required to pay P170,000 each for them to be included in the list of Uhop applicants to be issued immediately with PA upon filing of CPC application.
No matter in what angle one would look at it, there could be no other conclusion that can be made out of this inability of the “Flying Squad” of the LTO under the DOTr-CAR Regional Director to enforce JAO No. 2014-01 but that this failure, just like in the many failures to enforce the laws and the rules in the past, is what is known as blatant inutility of public officials.
Most notorious among them were the failure of the DOTC-CAR now DOTr-CAR to implement the Cease and Desist Order yet issued by the Board en banc in 2007 against the out-of-line operation of the Bua operators in Sitio Trail, Itogon, Benguet, as well as, the continuous operation of colorum taxis and vans for hire in Baguio City and CAR since DOTC-CAR was established way back 2003.
As affected resident-taxpayers of the city, perhaps it will not be too much naman to ask Regional Director Natividad and his now efficient looking Assistant Regional Director Mohammad Abbas what can be done about these lingering blatant inutilities to enforce the laws and the rules by the LTO Flying Squad under them.
In short, what now?
