DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/10 March) — The regional office of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) has moved the implementation of reduced flag-down rate for taxis to March 16.
Edgar Violan, spokesperson of LTFRB XI, said they have to conduct massive information dissemination first so all the taxi operators in Region XI will know that the flag-down rate would be reduced by P10.
The implementation of the fare adjustment from P40 to P30 as flag-down rate for regular taxis was supposed to start on March 9.
“We still need ample time to do information dissemination on the new order,” Violan said, as they would require taxis to place a notice on the reduced flag-down rate.
Davao Region, he said, has 4,006 taxi units.
Starting on March 16, the LTFRB XI will apprehend taxis that would violate the fare adjustment.
For the first offense, violators will pay a fine of P5,000. A P10,000 fine and suspension of the unit for 30 days will be the penalty for the second offense. For the third offense, the taxi operator will be penalized with a fine of P15,000 plus cancellation of franchise.
The new fare adjustment was based on an order by the LTFRB head office on March 6 for a P10 rollback in the flag-down rate for taxis nationwide.
LTFRB chair Winston Ginez said in a statement that this is only a provisional decrease which means taxis are not required to recalibrate their meters. Taxi drivers just have to deduct P10 from the total fare.
But Transmission-Piston chair Charito Juranes said there should be no reduction of the flag-down rate for taxis due to the fluctuating prices of gasoline and diesel. (MindaNews)