JUST as the Public Transport Modernization Program (PTMP) has started after months of hard work urging jeepney drivers and operators to consolidate and form cooperatives, and over P3 billion in budgetary allocation already spent, the Marcos administration is being asked by 22 senators to either delay or scrap the program.

From the very start, the PTMP has been one of the most controversial programs of the government, both of the Duterte and the Marcos administrations. In 2024, the government appropriated P1.6 billion for the program, with a utilization rate of 53 percent of the total P7.5-billion budget from 2018 to 2024. No wonder Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista is concerned.

Bautista said halting the program now “could undermine progress and damage relationships with stakeholders, particularly given that a significant percentage has already consolidated.”

‘We have said this before, and we say it again: There should be consistency of government policy, since policies are studied well and vetted by supposed experts before they are implemented.’

While the group of militant transport workers led by PISTON is ecstatic, the consolidated operators and drivers, now members of transport cooperatives, are sad. The Senate Resolution No. 1096 filed by Sen. Raffy Tulfo and signed by all the senators except Sen. Risa Hontiveros has put the PTMP in limbo, and the livelihoods of many transport workers and businessmen in the same place.

The leftist-led jeepney drivers have spent a big part of the first half of 2024 fighting for their right to a livelihood, launching strikes and protest actions, even filing cases in court.

Now, the organization of PTMP believers, law-abiding businessmen, and those scared to lose their sources of livelihood is unhappy enough to plan similar strikes and protests — in case the government gives in to the wish of the senators.

The PTMP is not a program that just fell down from a coconut tree. It was proposed officially by the DOTr and even opened itself to scrutiny by the Senate and the House of Representatives. It was deemed proper to accept and implement, but the modernization of land transportation is focused on commuter safety and comfort. The riding public would want that, even demand it.

If the program has flaws and faults, as the senators say now, they and other officials who have the power to do so should have nipped it in the bud early on, not when the government and the private transport sector have already invested millions of pesos in the change to modernize public utility vehicles.

It is well and good that the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) have assured all drivers and operators who have consolidated into cooperatives that the PTMP will continue despite the Senate resolution.

The DOTr said it would push through with the nationwide modernization, citing the fact that the majority of the transport sector has signed up under the program. The LTFRB said the PTMP will proceed in the absence of an official directive from the President suspending it.

Our officials (both the Duterte and Marcos administrations) have created a serious and massive problem where there is none, and are about to take in investment losses of several billions of pesos to boot, just for being neither here or there in the formulation of government policies.

We have said this before, and we say it again: There should be consistency of government policy, since policies are studied well and vetted by supposed experts before they are implemented. Consistency is the key, even if there is a change of administration.