Rhelyn Harder
- Joey Salceda runs to Supreme Court to stop the ban on provincial buses on EDSA which will be effective next month
- Banning the provincial buses “will not solve the traffic congestion” he said
- He said MMDA regulation is “utterly oppressive and unfair” to the public
Politician José María Clemente “Joey” Salceda has gone up to the Supreme Court to stop the ban on provincial buses on EDSA which will be effective next month.
On Monday, Salceda who is the representative of the second district of Albay, filed for a temporary restraining order against the plan of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to ban all provincial buses from picking up and dropping off passengers on EDSA.
Banning the provincial buses “will not solve the traffic congestion,” he said. Based on the data from the Philippine Statistics Authority which states that out of 2.8 million vehicles, there were only 4,000 thousand provincial buses on Metro Manila’s roads.
“[W]hy pick on probinsyanos to solve Metro Manila traffic? While each bus can carry 50 (people), a car can carry only five,” Salceda said. “MMDA should have instead managed the 800,000 utility vehicles, 400,000 cars, 120,000 trucks, and 1.4 million tricycles fighting for every available space in its streets.”
With the bus ban proposal, the buses from northern Luzon have to drop off all passengers at a terminal in Valenzuela City. Commuters from the south need to get off at Sta. Rosa, Laguna or at the Parañaque City terminal. From there, they have to board another bus to reach Manila.
Salceda said that provincial buses are not to blame for traffic jams because these buses usually enter EDSA between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. not during rush hour.
In his 15-page petition, it stated that the MMDA regulation is “utterly oppressive and unfair” to the public. These would only add physical and financial burdens on commuters.
Salceda also told the judge that he, too, rides public buses to and from his hometown.
By revoking the approved routes and franchises of the buses as granted by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, the MMDA have “overstepped” its authority as well as by removing bus terminals along EDSA, Salceda said.
According to MMDA General Manager Jojo Garcia, provincial buses on EDSA only cause five percent of traffic along a 23-kilometer stretch.
