by Joshua Fullido
The Tagbilaran Sangguniang Panglungsod (SP) is set to approve the provisional tricycle fare increase in the next session after it was deferred by the proponent during the regular session on July 15, 2022, according to committee chairman Jonas Cacho.
The proponent, Cacho who is the chairman of the Committee on Energy, Public Utility, Franchises and Transportation passed a resolution which provides a provisional tricycle fare hike of P15 for the 1st kilometer of the trip and an additional P2 per succeeding kilometer.
Currently, the tricycle fare in Tagbilaran City is P10 with an additional P2 per succeeding kilometer.
During the height of the pandemic, when the capacity of tricycles was limited to only one passenger per trip, commuters tolerated the overcharging of fare where the minimum was set at P15 instead of P10. While this is illegal, some commuters relented considering that tricycle drivers are not allowed to carry more than one passenger in their cabs.
The impending passage of the provisional fare increase legalizes the collection of P15 as minimum fare.
Cacho, in a telephone interview, said that he decided to defer the approval of the resolution granting the provisional fare increase due to clerical errors in the document submitted to the SP.
Cacho is confident that his colleagues in the city council will approve the provisional fare hike in the next session on July 21, 2022.
Moreover, Cacho said he pushed for a provisional rate increase so that it would be easy to reduce the fare from P15 back to P10 in case the prices of fuel get reduced.
He explained that the tricycle drivers and operators asked for a fare hike citing the hike in fuel prices itself as the reason. Cacho said that the city council may opt to revert the fares to P10 if there is a compelling reason to do so like a huge reduction in fuel prices.
Meanwhile, Cacho urges the public to report any incident of overcharging by tricycle drivers.
He said the public may lodge their complaint with the city government for any instance of fare overcharging.
Until the full implementation of the resolution on the provisional fare hike, Tagbilaran tricycle drivers are only allowed to collect P10 as minimum fare.
Furthermore, tricycle drivers are now allowed to carry more than one passenger in their cabs as the city is under Alert Level 1.
