ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Aug. 18, 2013) – A team from the Transportation department has inspected the Zamboanga bus terminal and was shocked to see the poor condition of the depot in one of the highly urbanized city in southern Philippines.
The team is also worried over the safety of the travellers and bus depot because of insufficient security measures. The dilapidated stalls and ambulant sellers dotted the terminal and that civilians and even street dogs roam the depot which is located in the village of Guiwan.
Soldiers and police also share a small tent that serves as an outpost outside the bus depot, which is being rented by Rural Transit Mindanao and other provincial bus liners whose routes included provinces in the western and northern Mindanao; and the cities of Bacolod and Dumaguete in the Visayas.
The inspectors also spoke to supervisors of the bus firms and interviewed them about the current security situation and the condition of the depot.
They also noticed the dilapidated structures and muddy compound of the bus terminal, but the owner of the depot has not taken any action to improve the area.
Zamboanga had long wanted to put up its own integrated bus terminal and held a public bidding for the multi-million project, however, one contractor who won the bidding had been disqualified and filed charges against the local government and the court stopped the project.
Rural Transmit Mindanao has previously sought to transfer to its own bus terminal in the village of Divisoria, but the local government has disapproved this for a still unknown reason.
Zamboanga has been left behind by many smaller cities and towns which had built their own bus depot in southern Philippines and considering their meager local revenues and internal revenue allotment compares to Zamboanga which has over P3 billion in savings in banks.
Zamboanga is among the seven consistently biggest recipient cities of internal revenue allocation along with Davao, General Santos, Cagayan de Oro, Quezon, Manila, Puerto Princesa and Cebu.
The internal revenue allotment is the share of revenues a local government from the national government and typically since cities have more sources of local revenues, their share ranges from 50% to 70% of their total budget. Zamboanga’s internal revenue allocation last year was P1.4 billion from as high as P2.1 in 2011. (Mindanao Examiner)
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