By Leonardo Micua

 

APROPOS to my item last week, officials of Pangasinan and Dagupan City must now realize that we have long been left out by our neighbors in the Ilocos and the Cordilleras of the convenience of having direct link via public transportation to Metro Manila from Pangasinan.

Imagine, Baguio residents only have to board a Victory Liner and would already be in Cubao, Quezon City in a few hours. Ditto for the people of Ilocos Norte and in Ilocos Sur who only need to board a Farinas bus in Laoag or a Partas bus in Vigan that would bring them to Manila, with just a whirlwind stop-over in Sison town.

These northern buses are strictly point to point buses and don’t pick up passengers along the way, not even in Sison where they have brief stop-overs. So, they cannot be of any help to the commuting Pangasinenses who want to get to Manila. They  don’t unload their passengers at the North Luzon Expressway Terminal in Bocaue, Bulacan as required of buses originating from Pangasinan by LTFRB ostensibly per the guidelines issued by the national IATF.

We see these buses from the north pass through our side of the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway with moist eyes aware that not a single bus from either Dagupan, Lingayen, San Carlos City, Alaminos City, Anda and Bolinao travels directly to Metro Manila to this day.

Since the situation is normalizing all over with the significant drop in COVID-19 cases in all areas, isn’t it time the national IATF -EID lifted its guideline imposed on buses for Pangasinan-Metro Manila routes?

Methinks the ball is now in the hands of local government officials to press NIATF to lift its guidelines?

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Because of the long lockdown caused by the pandemic and the subsequent refusal of bus operators to use the NLET, some owners of buses, are reportedly on the verge of bankruptcy because of losses in millions of pesos for non-operation while keeping the maintenance of the buses to continue to keep these in operating conditions.  

The Solid North’s two terminals in Perez’s Boulevard have been closed and all the units were moved to its big bus depot on Arellano Street where  of its buses were already  grounded for almost two years, placed at the mercy of the elements.  

Its rival bus companies, Five Star and Victory Liner, have already fielded buses to service their Dagupan to Tarlac line and vice versa and even Dagupan to Baguio and vice versa, but Solid North has not resumed operations.

Solid North was running toe to toe with its chief competitors Five Star and Victory Liner during pre-pandemic period but may soon bow out because of the ruinous policy of the national government.

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Two officials of the Dagupan public market have repeatedly ignored the invitations of the Sangguniang Panlungsod to appear in its session to answer questions to serious allegations raised by some small-scale vendors against them.

There is now a prevailing suspicion that a gag order from the city hall to the market officials, similar to President Duterte’s gag order on the Pharmally issue, was issued to prevent them from shedding light on the collection of P100 in the form of cash tickets instead of only P20 a day as provided for in an ordinance that has not been amended and, therefore, is still in effect.

The market officials have been asked for their legal basis for collecting P100 per day in the form of cash tickets when the ordinance specified only P20. Where is the excess P80 going? asked veteran Councilor Chito Samson.

The other serious allegation is the alleged collection of P25,000 a month from a group of fish vendors by the Market Marshal task force whose collections were recorded monthly in the vendors’ logbook and acknowledged by the collector.

So, were the market officials, Randolph Ubando and Michael Hernando also been ordered by their boss, Mayor Brian Lim, not to appear in the SP inquiry?

Councilor Dennis Canto refuses to believe that the chief executive is not aware of what’s happening at the SP because the PIO has been continuously monitoring every session of the legislative body. And there is Councilor Celia Lim, the mayor’s mother, participating in all discussions in the SP.

I hope Lim did not issue any gag order, otherwise the people of Dagupan City, will never know the whole truth about the vendors’ allegations. Incidentally, “kotong” only became an issue in the city during this administration.

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