Lao cmte hears petitions of rela assns on fare matrix

COUNCILOR Teodulfo E. Lao, chair of the City Council committee on public utilities, on Friday, heard the petition of motorela drivers association on the possible repeal or amendment of Ordinance No 11512-2009, which provides and approves the automatic fare adjustment of motorela based on the prevailing local price of gasoline.

Federation of Motorela Operators and Drivers in Cagayan de Oro (FEMODCO), Inc. president Paul Cempron said the petition is anchored on two grounds.

The first reason, he said, is that there is an error in the range of gasoline prices in the ordinance as it does not include the decimals.

Based on the ordinance, the regular fare is P7 if the price of gasoline per liter is P56.00 to P65.00; P6, for P40 to P55 per liter; P5, for P26 to P39, and P4, if the gasoline price is P11 to P25.

According to the association, 99 centavos is missing in every gasoline price range.

Because of this, he said, drivers and passengers sometimes argue over the matrix.

In addition to this, he said the eight-year old matrix has “ill-effects”.

“When the gasoline price increase, the prices of almost all prime commodities automatically increase, but when the gasoline price is rolled back or decreased, the prices of commodities never decreased,” the association cited.

Another group of motorela drivers are pushing for the repeal of the ordinance and the increase in motorela fare to P7 for regular fare, P6 for SP and senior citizens and P3 for children.

Councilor Lao welcomed the proposal but said his committee will still have to hear from the commuting public.

He said another public hearing will take place on April 20 at 2:00 p.m. with the different sectors.

The academe, PWDs, labor sector, barangay chairmen, market vendors and other groups will also be invited so that the committee can listen to their side on the matter, he added.