Palace asked: Hold hikes in LRT-MRT fares, toll rates By Angie M. Rosales 09/21/2011

Palace asked: Hold hikes in LRT-MRT fares, toll rates

By Angie M. Rosales 09/21/2011

Senators, crossing party lines, have formally appealed to Malacañang to put off even in the meantime the planned simultaneous increase in fees of the Light Rail and Metro Rail Transit (LRT-MRT) and toll in the country’s expressways.

The initiative of Senators Manuel Villar Jr., Joker Arroyo and Ralph Recto was immediately given assurance of full support by no less than Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile while seven other colleagues moved to have themselves made co-authors of Resolution No. 602.

In filing the resolution, the original authors pointed out that public hearings conducted by the Senate economic affairs, public services and other appropriate committees on the provisional fare hike showed that “there is no need to increase this year the fares of MRT and LRT.”

“I will support it. The situation in the country is such as that there is too much burden on the public and I think that government must be ready to subsidize public services for the benefit of the poor and that is the same philosophy of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) — to subsidize the people who are not in the position to pay for themselves considering the cost of transportation in the country and the uncontrolled increase in the price of fuel for transportation. I think the government must sacrifice and be ready to subsidize the transportation needs of the people,” Enrile said in an interview with reporters..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110921met1.html