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Scrap the code, scrape off the bus?

Posted on November 23, 2010

Scrap number-coding or scrape buses off EDSA

If only 1,600 are all that EDSA can accommodate, it means that some 3,500 buses that ply the 29-kilometer road is a case of “overload”. In short, EDSA’S carrying capacity was filled to the gutters, matter-of-factly. Question is most automatically why this sad “scheme and scene” is allowed to happen. An agency ought to be responsible – it has to do a lot of explaining.

Could it not be that concerned agencies have already tied a ‘collusion loop’ with bus operators. This means that more buses than what EDSA could desirably carry, more grants of franchise are approved than what should be the prescribed limit, and more colorum buses will fill the ‘demand void’ in case large bus companies stage a transport strike. In short, where do we go from here?

The Monday bus strike of 15 November stranded thousands (one theorizes it breached the million mark) of commuters, resultantly held the government hostage for its inability to absorb the ‘crushing shock’ of such a massive transport strike, and effectively created a level of confusion if not chaos that can make a government vulnerable to the ‘rapacity of the capitalist system’. No need to say, bus operators (with the most number of buses) seem unable to give way to public interest because of vicious profit motive.

Where must this orgy end that threatens the State, weakens its resolve, and kicks the State’s sense of balance into the cliff? It is pretty much easier to understand labor union strikes than this one that sets highly dangerous precedent. What has the capitalists against government – one must ask – especially where a law is simply being implemented?

The circumstances of that nightmarish Monday are not indicative of an ‘accident’ or non-knowledge on the part of the protesting bus operators. It was deliberate, it was purposive, it was malicious. It wants to cripple the arm of the government so that it can turn the table around – disable government to implement the number coding scheme and instead kowtow to what the private bus companies wants to happen.

From where I stand, I can only suggest that the proper agency of government revoke the franchises. After all, EDSA can carry only 1,600 buses each and every day. Revoking the licenses of the buses proven or found to have participated in the transport strike will simply follow the ‘Darwinian curse’ – they will be eliminated or better still, scraped off the road of EDSA.

That seems to be the only solution to the problem, for now.

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