When I have a car, and I decide that when I am not using it, and neither is my family, I will allow others to rent it, with me as driver, that is fully an exercise of one of the jura (rights) of ownership guaranteed by the Civil Code. The last time I checked, only Congress can amend the Civil Code, not you!
And as a commuter, I have the full right to determine how I should commute. I may even choose not to commute at all. Should I have as loose screws as you obviously have in the head, then I can crawl my way to my destination should I choose to, or use a pogo stick if I want to. If I flag down a police car and ask to be taken to my destination and the police officers gallantly consent to, that is NONE of your business. Or should I hail a passing funeral car because I want more comfortable passage, lying down through the streets that your ineptitude has caused to be hopelessly glutted, that too is none of your business, as long as the funeral director knows that he is not to take me to the cemetery…. yet. So it is that when I choose to ask someone who owns a car to ferry me to where I want to go, and to pay him for the trouble and the gas, that once more is NONE of your business. Why have you developed this nasty habit of nosiness, of dipping your smelly fingers into other people’s jam?
Haven’t you noticed that whenever you, LTFRB, get involved, things go badly wrong? You want us to haggle, and argue and be treated shabbily by the taxi drivers you coddle? Why? What’s with you and them? Something akin to what Korean telenovelas dish out, perhaps?
You claim to be standing up for the welfare of the riding public. Why does the riding public not feel that way, and why are your supposedly valiant efforts spurned, rather than applauded? Because we smell a rat, not very unlike the obnoxious smell that assaults our nostrils when we board the cabs you so lovingly protect. And if, indeed, Uber and Grab drivers are involved in common carriage, then the provisions of the Civil Code sufficiently protect the interests and the welfare of passengers. All other regulation would be superfluous and regulation that curtails freedoms and severely restricts choices runs against everything that the Constitution embodies.
Our Republic rests on the concept of free enterprise. The Constitution and the laws enshrine it. A control state is the antithesis of a free enterprise State, which is why in such a state, there is a surfeit of regulation. And when regulation stands in the way of public convenience and trumps on the right of the individual to choose—especially when there is nothing intrinsically amiss about choosing to ride Uber or Grab over a cab or a jeepney, then there is direct assault on free enterprise.
And you warn Uber and Grab not to turn the ire of commuters against you. Are you wondering whether we, the commuting public are angry at you? You bet we are—we very much are! In fact I am so pissed off that I have prayed for the past two nights for St. Peter to see to it that the heavenly gates are tightly shut against anyone wearing an LTFRB identifying mark by the time he gets there. That’s how angry I am…and I assure you, I am not alone!
rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@outlook.com