Tricycle fare hike in Zamboanga

(Published in Zamboanga Today on January 19, 2008.)

Many Zamboangueños are complaining over the fare hikes imposed by tricycle drivers from their passengers, even when the distance is short.

A visitor relates her experience with one of the tricycle drivers in Zamboanga, when she was charged an incredulous fare of one hundred pesos from the airport to Santa Maria. A teacher once related that when she came home to Zamboanga after a three-day seminar in Manila, she was surprised when the tricycle driver who offered to take her from the port area to her long-time home in Canelar one hundred fifty pesos. And since the prices in fuel started to go up, fare from el pueblo to Baliwasan would be about forty pesos.

These are but few of the instances, and many commuters are now complaining over what the city government is doing to regulate this fare hike imposed by drivers themselves. Who regulates the fares in the first place?

Almost all tricycles in Zamboanga City have a sign that indicates that the fare prescribed by law is but eight pesos for the first kilometer, and two pesos is added for every additional kilometer of travel. This is not however followed. The drivers feel that they are more powerful than the law, and the agency that supposedly sees this law be in effect, that many commuters feel the burden on their pockets.

Unfortunately, all our political leaders are traveling around SUVs and well-polished, or even heavily tinted cars that they could not see through the pain of every taxpayer that put them into office. As it is, they are hardly concerned with the unscrupulous acts of these tricycle drivers.

In Cotabato, Marbel, Cagayan de Oro, Ozamis, Dipolog and Pagadian Cities, to name a few, the trike fare ranges from P6 to P10 per person, depending on the distance. In Zamboanga, a passenger gets charged from P15 (for very short distances) to sixty pesos, for distances within the 7-kilometer radius. At one time, someone tried to defend our tricycle drivers in saying that, trike passengers in the city enjoy the ‘privilege’ of taxi passengers which may have the vehicle at their disposal. Such is a good point, but then again, in the same aforementioned places, trike drivers may just bring passengers to their destination even when there are no co-riders.

We can empathize with our tricycle drivers when they also feel the burden of the fuel hike, however, government should step in at this point to regulate fare rates. If our officials have been concerned of the voters among the drivers themselves, they should start considering the greater number of voters whom they can win in their favor in the next elections from among the passengers.

One cannot however deny the fact that, bien caro el pasaje aqui. (Frencie L. Carreon)