ATOK, Benguet – The municipal government wants the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) and other law enforcement agencies to conduct an investigation and impose the necessary penalties against unscrupulous taxi drivers ferrying tourists from Baguio City to the various tourist destinations in the municipality for their alleged failure to remit to the municipal coffers the environmental fee they have illegally collected from their passengers.
Mayor Franklin Smith said that the alleged collection of the taxi drivers of the environmental fee from their passengers is already a violation of the town’s existing policy aggravated by their failure to remit the same to the local government that warrants the imposition of the appropriate penalties on them.
“We are actually considerate because we do not interfere with their transactions with their passengers but what we do not want is their unauthorized collection of the environmental fee which is supposed to be done by the assigned personnel. We will conduct our own investigation on the matter and will do the necessary operations to identify the unscrupulous taxi drivers responsible for illegally collecting the environment fee from their passengers and not remitting the same to the local government,” Mayor Smith stressed.
The local chief executive claimed that what is ironic about the said situation is that the unscrupulous taxi drivers do not even remit the collected environment fee to the local government paving the way for the visitors to actually shell out additional money from their pockets to be able to visit their desired destinations in the different parts of the municipality.
He pointed out that concerned law enforcers will conduct the necessary operations against the erring taxi drivers so that their identities, including the license plate numbers, trade names, among others, will be forwarded to the LTFRB for appropriate action.
According to him, the local government does not interfere with the transactions of the taxi drivers with their prospective passengers that is why they should not include in their deals the collection of the prescribed ₱50 environment fee for every tourist because that should be left with the personnel assigned in the tourist spots that the visitors intend to visit when in the locality.
Mayor Smith pointed out that the action of the taxi drivers offering their units for hire by tourists wanting to visit the different destinations in the municipality is already a clear violation of the franchises that were issued to their operators that is why the LTFRB should already look into the matter to correct the said illegal practice.
He explained that the municipal government is still crafting the ordinance mandating the collection of the prescribed environment fee from tourists visiting the municipality and that the ₱50 is just the initial fee that had been agreed upon by concerned stakeholders.
Atok is one of the emerging tourist destinations outside Baguio City because of the presence of scenic tourist destinations such as flower farms, trekking sites among others complimented by the town’s cool weather that usually drops to close to zero degrees Celsius during the prevalence of the cold months. By Dexter A. See
