LTFRB and DOTr bungled service contracting implementation

Service contracting is a great idea, but the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) and the Department of Transportation (DOTr) bungled its implementation. As in the Department of Health (DOH), bad governance, if not massive corruption, attended its execution.

On Aug. 18, the LTFRB released a statement belying the Commission on Audit report that only 1 percent of the funds for service contracting was released to beneficiary drivers of public utility vehicles (PUVs). The LTFRB declared that P1.5 billion out of the P5.56 billion service contracting budget under Bayanihan 2 was disbursed.

If that is true, then only 25 percent of service contracting funds reached 50,000 drivers nationwide. But there are already 120,000 transport workers in NCR alone, a conservative estimate based on one worker per PUV. The rest of the funds for service contracting has been returned to the treasury without benefiting hundreds of thousands of other transport workers. This situation is no different from hospital workers who decried the DOH for not granting hazard pay and benefits to deserving health care workers (HCW).

We call on the LTFRB to respond to the demands of transport workers. It pains us to hear that there are billions in funds that did not reach transport workers who are needy and hungry. We also know that beneficiaries of service contracting received their payouts up to three months delayed, instead of the ideal one week or less. In our case, the LTFRB contracted Yellow Bus Lines for only two months of libreng sakay for APORs (authorized persons outside residence) and HCWs from May to June 2021. Yellow Bus Lines drivers, conductors, dispatchers, and mechanics are becoming desperate since most of them have had no regular income for more than a year already.

The LTFRB and the DOTr should exercise tripartism and social dialogue so that it hears the concerns of workers. Only drivers were deemed beneficiaries while conductors and other bus workers were excluded. Our union had to negotiate with the company so that conductors could also work under service contracting and receive payouts.

In the just transition framework of the International Labour Organization (ILO), social dialogue is a key principle. But the government has learned nothing from the 2016 ILO just transition pilot project in the Philippines, since service contracting is being implemented in a top-down manner similar to how the jeepney modernization—which was supposed to undergo a three-year transition—was rammed through amid the pandemic lockdown.

Finally, service contracting must be rebooted and reframed as the better normal for public transport. It should go beyond ayuda and libreng sakay as is being implemented now. Service contracting under the PUV modernization program should be a mechanism to formalize and improve the transport industry so that we have sustainable and livable cities. Through service contracting, the government ensures the delivery of safe, comfortable, and efficient public transport by engaging jeepney cooperatives and bus companies on long-term contracts and mandating regular employment with social protection for transport workers.

ROSS NATIVIDAD
President
Yellow Bus Lines Employees Union