This view was aired by Anakpawis Partylist Rep. Ariel Casilao after thousands of commuters were stranded in this city last week, after jeepney drivers garaged their vehicles to avoid being caught by traffic officers from the Land Transportation Office (LTO).
“There’s no doubt the campaign of the DOTr-I-ACT under the Tanggal Bulok, Tangal Usok is in fact an operation to crackdown against jeepneys. This is just a smokescreen for the phase out and jeepney modernization plan by the Duterte government,” Casilao said in a statement.
He noted that the recent crackdowns “resulted to massive inconvenience of thousands of commuters.”
“The latest was in the UP-Katipunan area last Thursday when hundreds of students, employees and workers were stranded due to the lack of available jeepneys plying the route,” Casilao noted.
At the same time, he said “it is condemnable that the Duterte government through the DOTr continuously fails miserably to provide convenience to almost half a million MRT commuters.”
“The government’s promise of providing better service has yet to be delivered,” he noted.
Casilao urged both jeepney and MRT commuters “to protest such high level of incompetency and anti-people policy of the government.”
“We should demand better service. It seems like this government is good only in pushing policies that are against the interest of the people, like the TRAIN Law, which squeezes the public of their hard-earned money through higher taxes amid its failure to provide decent mass transport service,” he lamented.
