BREAKING

1/22/2015

The Truth Behind the Fare Increase



It’s already the fourth week of January 2015 and the debate is still ongoing regarding the sudden fare increase of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3 and the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1 and 2.

Earlier this year, the fare increased by almost 100% as students like me faced the return of the classes. January 4 marked the date of the sudden increase that took all of us by surprise. If you would look closely at the data, the last significant increase was almost a decade ago and if I would be asked, I think it would be just fine to increase the fare as it is already time to upgrade the maintenance of operation of the trains. You can check out my stance on this on my previous posts.

However, as I dwell deeper into the issue, my stand on the case began to change and now I think that the fare increase was unjust, has no clear basis and is done for corruption purposes. How did I come up with this conclusion? Well just look at the facts that were presented.

When asked how they came up with the new fare matrix, Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Secretary Jun Abaya were not able to explain clearly as well as present data that will support their case.

 Also, Secretary Jun Abaya failed to attend hearing at the Senate and gave “meeting with clients” as an excuse even though they were given information about the hearing date weeks before so they could prepare.

Another thing that we could look to is this question: Why does DOTC keep on pushing the buyout to happen? Well, it didn’t go well as they have planned as the Senate scrapped their petition for this but yeah, I still haven’t figured out why they keep on pushing for it. The most possible reason is that they want to full control of the train and most likely, they’ll just give the maintenance to a company they are in favor of just like what they did years ago.

At the end of the day, the fare increase was uncalled for and was not justified. When you look at it from a shallow perspective, one would think that it is just for upgrade purposes. But why do they need to increase the fare when in fact, they had the budget for it? What exactly happened??

What do you guys think?


Cheers~!

- Justin -

About the ""

Justin Vawter Greco Buenagua *

An architecture student. A fashion and design blogger. Total sucker for S.H.E.! Wishes to be married to Ella Chen someday (sorry Richard!) I created this blog just to share everything I love about C-Pop. Who would have thought this would become like this? Thank you for reading! Keep the love for Asian music alive! :)
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