By Johnny Dayang
CABANATUAN City prides itself as the Tricycle City of the Philippines. Years back official records show there were about 80,000 tricycles plying the city’s streets. The number could now be over 100,000 including tricycles from nearby towns which operate in the city, serving the intra-city transport needs of its 330,000 population. This is evident from the endless daytime traffic chaos in the city.
My Cabanatuan-based friend, however, shares his observation on the matter, as follows:
“Many local tricycle drivers seem hell-bent in making Cabanatuan as the City of the Most Notoriously Opportunistic and Abusive Tricycle Drivers in the country. They not only violate every traffic rule but also flaunt their utter disrespect for others, motorists and passengers alike, taking every opportunity to upstage them.
“What galls many local commuters is how these drivers demand and coerce their passengers to pay them overpriced fares and cussing and insulting them when they refuse to do their bidding. They demand P30 for less than two-kilometer distances and exponentially higher the further the distance go. The city ordinance on the matter prescribes only P14 for the first two kilometers and an additional R2 for every extra kilometer.
“They regularly victimize transients, charging them exorbitant rates. They even exhibit their own contrived fare matrix to deceive riders. For share-riding students they charge them P20 each. The ordinance prescribes only R10 each for multiple passengers.”
This report merits the attention of local city and traffic authorities.
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DENGVAXIA HYSTERIA. By how it reads, Dengvaxia hysteria sounds like the name of a new dengue virus strain. Of course it is not and has simply emerged as a political mutant dengue virus, arising from the mindless and shrill disagreements among authorities who are supposed to safeguard and promote our country’s public welfare.
Media accounts, confirmed by Health Francisco Duque himself, have it that many less informed parents now resist having their kids vaccinated against various diseases for fear their children may die. This is unfortunate but understandable. Tragically, however, we may soon hear of epidemics wiping out populations in remote areas caused by ailments against which inoculations have been proven effective.
The phobia would not have materialized if our Justice and Health officials have acted early on to jointly and rationally address the Dengvaxia issue instead of allowing their underlings to exploit it to promote their own personal agenda.
