HOUSE LABOR COMMITTEE TO ROXAS: OBEY SC ON
PANTRANCO BUS FRANCHISES
[PHOTO - MAR ROXAS][ DEFUNCT BUS COMPANIES OF THE PH VIDEO
BELOW]
MANILA, JULY
18, 2012 (INQUIRER) By Gil C. Cabacungan -
Transportation Secretary Manuel Roxas should order the Land
Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) to immediately transfer
the franchises awarded to former employees of the shuttered Pantranco North
Express Inc. to Victory Liner Inc.
Northern Samar Representative Emil Ong, chairman of the House committee on
labor, said: "He (Roxas) has to follow the decision of the Supreme Court that
the salaries of the employees have the priority lien over the assets of the
bankrupt corporation. That's the law."
Bayan Muna party-list Representative Teodoro Casiño said Roxas "should let
the LTFRB do its job of transferring the franchises to the company to which the
former Pantranco workers sold it to."
Casiño lauded Transportation Undersecretary Rafael Santos for assuring the
ex-Pantranco employees headed by their two union presidents, Romy Alfonso of
Pantranco Retrenched Employees Association and Jun Pascua of Pantranco Employees
Association, that Roxas had not cancelled the Pantranco franchises.
Santos said what Roxas had ordered a review of the transfer of the franchises
to Victory Liner, to which rival bus companies protested that the franchises
should have expired when Pantranco closed down years ago.
Casiño said Pantranco's workers had waited for decades to receive their
overdue compensation. He pointed out the Supreme Court not only upheld the
union's right to the Pantranco franchises, but the LTFRB also validated their
transfer to the unions.
"It's not right for a certificate of public conveyance in the land
transportation sector to be transferred arbitrarily without the consent of its
rightful owner, which is the state," Roxas had said when he suspended the May 21
decision of the LTFRB resurrecting Pantranco's 489 bus franchises.
FROM THE TRIBUNE
Pantranco franchise under review, not canceled — DoTC Written
by Tribune Friday, 13 July 2012 00:00
The Department of Transportation
and Commu-nications (DoTC) is reviewing and not canceling the franchise of the
country's formerly biggest bus companies, the defunct Pantranco North Express
Inc., an official of the agency assured the bus firm's former employees who
expressed worries over the claims of some bus operators that Pantranco's
franchise was already canceled or revoked.
In a statement, former
employees of Pantranco represented by union presidents Romy Alfonso and Jun
Pascua of Pantranco Retrenched Employees Association (Panrea) and Pantranco
Employees Association (PEA) said they were assured by DoTC that what it had
ordered previously was only a review of the franchise's status, and not its
cancellation.
This assurance, they said, was given by DoTC Undersecretary
for Planning and Operations Rafael Santos during a meeting with union
representatives last Wednesday. They said Santos denied that Transportation and
Communi-cations Secretary Manuel "Mar" Roxas had ordered the franchise's
outright cancellation.
In particular, they said, Roxas simply wanted to
know if everything was in order with respect to the revival of the Pantranco
franchise.
Prior to the meeting, former Pantranco employees led by
Alfonso and Pascua held a rally in front of the DoTC office to protest what they
alleged was bias on the part of Roxas for not hearing their side of the
controversy.
They claimed the franchise was valid, and that they legally
sold it to the Hernandez family, which operates a number of bus
lines.
But competing bus operators opposed the sale, claiming the
Pantranco franchise was no longer valid. The controversy prompted DoTC action on
the matter.
Prior to the franchise sale, the Land Transportation
Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) already ruled that the Pantranco
franchise was legitimate and in order.
The LTFRB had awarded the
franchise to over 2,000 former employees represented by two unions — to answer
for millions of pesos in back wages the bus company had owed them. The
employees, in turn, sold it to Hernandez family to raise just compensation due
them as ruled by the Supreme Court way back in 1993.
Alfonso and Pascua
said that the more than 2,000 employees of Pantranco were ust asking for "social
justice" from the government after the bus company closed shop in 1993 due to
bankruptcy after the government sequestered the firm and took over its
management and operations in 1986.
The controversy over the sale of the
franchise, however, resulted in the resignation of LTFRB Board Member Manuel
Iway effective July 15, following attacks from bus operators opposed to the
sale.
Iway and LTFRB board member Samuel Garcia out-voted LTFRB chairman
Jaime Jacob, 2-1, last June in resolving the Pantranco issue in favor of
Pantranco's former employees.
Iway stood by his decision, saying it was
based on previous LTFRB decisions regarding franchise revival, and was in
compliance with court decisions that aimed to give justice to more than 2,000
retrenched employees of Pantranco.
"As much as I admire the talents and
work ethics of Secretary Roxas, as well as his right as DoTC secretary to
overturn the LTFRB's decisions, I am pained that he would react to the Pantranco
franchise incident in the manner that he did, and ultimately put your
administration and LTFRB's reputation in a bad light," Iway wrote President
Aquino in his resignation letter.
"While I can assure you that there is
no truth to those ridiculous claims, I know it will take a miracle to convince
those who have no faith in your 'Daang Matuwid' policy and will continue to use
the Pantranco franchise incident as another reason to attack your
administration," he added.
NOSTALGIA VIDEO: DEFUNCT BUS COMPANIES OF THE PHILIPPINES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WNeGgjwXEY&feature=player_embedded
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2012 by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
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rights reserved
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