AIMING for a more efficient and inclusive Public Transport Modernization Program (PTMP), Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, along with other senators, seeks to temporarily suspend its implementation through a Senate resolution.

Filed on July 30, 2024, Senate Resolution No. 1096 underscores the valid and urgent concerns raised by affected drivers, groups, unions, and transport cooperatives, aiming to improve the execution of the PTMP, formerly known as the Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP).

Under the program, individual operators are required by the government to “consolidate” or join cooperatives and corporations for easier processing of bank loans when they avail themselves of the modernized public utility vehicles.

Cayetano and his co-authors acknowledged the plight of drivers who will be left behind, writing in the resolution that the small stakeholders, “particularly the drivers, who remain unconsolidated, are effectively forced out of their livelihoods, with most of them expressing that the only skill they have is driving.”

As of April 30, 2024 – the latest deadline set by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) for the consolidation of public utility vehicles (PUVs) – 36,217 units, or approximately 19% of the jeepneys and other PUVs, have not yet consolidated.

The resolution states that the high figure of unconsolidated units is primarily due to “insufficiency of information drive on the part of the government to educate the drivers, operators, and transport groups about the PTMP and burden of financing the cost of modern PUVs, which greatly exceeds the financial capacity of drivers and operators.”

While Cayetano and the co-authoring senators believe the goal of modernization is commendable, they assert that there is an urgent need to thoroughly review and reassess the program’s impact due to these matters.

“While the intent of PTMP is laudable, continuing with the Program without threshing out these concerns would go against the Constitutional directive of promoting social justice in all phases of national development,” they stated in the resolution.

Cayetano earlier said the PTMP presented a “one-size-fits-all” transport modernization program and had not taken the differences among localities into consideration.

“Kung sa gamot walang cure-all, sa programa ng gobyerno lalo in a country with more than 7,000 islands, wala namang one-size-fits-all,” he said.

Cayetano also said that drivers, transport groups, and cooperatives would be willing to modernize as long as it does not overly burden them and ensures the sustainability of their livelihoods.

“Basta ‘win-win’ ang sitwasyon, most drivers and operators ay papayag sa modernization,” he said.