• THERESA MAE DULMAN
Commuters in Bacolod City will not face a transport strike today, Sept. 28, after local transport leaders confirmed that drivers will continue plying their routes.
Rudy Catedral, president of the Bacolod Alliance of Commuters, Operators, and Drivers-Manibela, confirmed Sept. 27 that their members will also not take part in the strike scheduled for Tuesday to Wednesday.
Instead, the group will hold a two-hour protest rally in front of the Bacolod City Government Center replica in the public plaza today, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., before immediately returning to their regular routes.
“We received instructions from our national group that our action will strictly be for one day only, because the government has already granted what our national leadership requested regarding a fare increase, and there is also an impending fuel price rollback. That is the reason why we backed out and will no longer extend it into a three-day strike,” Catedral said via phone patch.
Meanwhile, Lilian Sembrano said drivers under the Kabacod Negros Transport Organization (KNETCO) and the United Negros Drivers and Operators Center (Undoc), both affiliated with the Pagkakaisa ng mga Samahan ng Tsuper at Opereytor Nationwide (Piston), will likewise ply their routes today.
However, KNETCO and Undoc plan to proceed with their transport strike tomorrow and Wednesday, and will gather at the Bata and Magsaysay flyovers.
Despite the cancellation of the jeepney strike, several academic institutions in the city, including the University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos, Carlos Hilado Memorial State University, and Bacolod City College will transition to online classes as precautionary measure.
The Bacolod city government also announced the deployment of vehicles offering free rides across the city, starting at 9 a.m. today. | TMD
