The increase in fares of Metro Rail Transit Line 3 and Light Rail Transit Lines 1 and 2 was also criticized by various groups and commuters.
“This is not a popular decision insofar as the MRT-riding passengers are concerned, but we are doing this because this is the right thing to do,” Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said.
Lacierda emphasized that the government has not completely cut its subsidy for the mass transport system, but has merely reduced the subsidy from P12 billion last year to P10 billion this year.
“We did not take away the subsidy. The subsidy is still there,” he said.
He said President Benigno Aquino has already explained that the subsidy for the MRT and LRT fares needs to be reduced so that the government could allocate its resources to regions that do not benefit from the MRT and LRT service.
“So, of the P2 billion that we can save, we are going to allocate the resources to other areas like Visayas and Mindanao,” Lacierda said.
He said the increased fares are still lower than air-conditioned or regular bus fares. He assured the public that the government will continue to improve the services of the mass transport system.
“We can assure the MRT-riding passengers that rehabilitation is forthcoming. Rehabilitation has been planned this year. We are going to improve the services of the MRT,” he said.
But Migrante Middle East said overseas Filipino workers and their families are also opposing the hike in fares and branding it as anti-people.
“For OFWs and their dependents, the MRT and LRT fare hike is not a good New Year gift from an anti-people like Aquino and the government’s capitalist partners,” said the Saudi Arabia-based John Leonard Monterona, the group’s regional coordinator.
Monterona claimed that OFWs and their dependents will be badly affected by the fare hike because thousands of OFWs have children studying in Metro Manila.
“Students of OFWs are also riding the MRT and LRT, thus a fare hike would mean an additional expense and an added burden to the OFWs, who are usually bread winners,” Monterona said.
He noted that those OFWs whose income ranges from P15,000 to P20,000 a month will feel the burden of the fare increase. “Most of them are household service workers and construction workers in the Middle East and Asia Pacific. The Aquino administration’s Public-Private Partnership scheme should be junked as it only overburdens the public and the millions of ordinary people in favor of its big capitalist partners whose aim is to gain and gain huge profits at the expense of the ordinary people,” he said.
Monterona said that affiliate organizations of Migrante in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia are preparing protest activities in support of the anti-MRT and LRT fare hike movement in the home front. “We will do our share in opposing and exposing the anti-people character of BS Aquino and his regime in the international community,” Monterona said.(Mindanao Examiner)
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