Traffic Chief equivocal on Racket of Colorum Owners, LTO

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY - Are the brasses of the Land Transportation Office protects the non-franchise vans colorums that ply in Pangasinan?

Public Order & Safety Office Chief Carlito O. Ocampo was equivocal on the reason why he and some of his men were stripped off by the LTO with the power to issue Temporary Operator’s Permit to drivers of these colorums.

In this file photo fiery President Rodrigo Duterte warns corrupt LTO,
LTFRB officials and employees to be re-assigned  in war torns Jolo,
Basilan. Credit:Coolbuster.net

“Dahil alam ko may nahuli kaming dalawang colorum plying the route of Urdaneta –Dagupan last week. I don’t know if that trigger this ban,” he stressed with reporters.

Ocampo cited that the two vans they flagged down were part of the 40 vans illegally plying this city and Urdaneta City.

He cited that they do not even have a terminal here.

Ocampo smarted to reporters when LTO Regional Director Teofilo Guadiz III declared in a television interview that he and members of the POSO were not deputized by his office as LTO agents.

“The truth of the matter I am deputized by the LTO. The proof of which is my I.D bearing my name. At the back of my I.D are the signature and the printed name of Attorney Teofilo Guadiz III. I think this is enough to prove that I am a deputized agent of the LTO”.

Ocampo said the LTO even gave him a booklet of Temporary Operator’s Permit (TOP) so he could issue them to violators.

But Guadiz ignored Ocampo’s explanation as the former circulated a letter to drivers and operators in Pangasinan that Ocampo and his men are not deputized to apprehend drivers.

Guadiz told Sunday Punch Newspaper that Ocampo is not qualified to be deputized because the transportation code requires that only regular employees can qualify and Ocampo is only a contractual worker of the city government.

“A letter circulated to all members of the transport sector purportedly signed by Guadiz claims that POSO enforcers, including Ocampo are not authorized to enforce national traffic rules nor to issue traffic violation tickets and confiscate driver’s licenses. Guadiz said LTO and its deputized agents cannot impound colorum vehicles since that is a function reserved for the Land Transportation Regulation and Franchising Board (LTFRB),”the Newspaper cited.

When asked that Guadiz wanted to disenfranchise the police too with their LTO’s deputization,

Ocampo said if the LTO wanted to revoke their deputization then the transportation office just wasted their time in a seminar called by the LTO.

“They must show justification because we give them a seminar inaabala nila kami. They will just recall without due process probably that was unfair. Two araw kaming nag seminar bago kami na deputized. That’s unfair. They should show cause why they are recalling our deputization”.

Recently, a member of a jeepney organization given by the LTFRB the franchise to service the Downtown Loop here went to Sonshine Radio and expose the collusion of LTO personnel and the president of his organization in requiring all the front windshields of the public utility jeeps for a sticker the driver pays one hundred pesos montly so they would not be harassed by the LTO enforcers.

 “One thousand jeeps in Pangasinan multiplied by one hundred pesos then that is one hundred thousand pesos a month for the LTO and the presidents of the jeepney’s organizations who are in cahoots with the corrupt officials of the LTO,” the whistle blower, who asked anonymity, computed the monies involved to all PUJs in the 44 towns and 4 cities’ Pangasinan.

This city’s LTO District Chief Richard Agbayani denied this accusation when interviewed by this paper.

In the past, the LTO regional office in San Fernando City in La Union was accused of being recipients of sums from bus operators.

 Media reports including this paper said that certain bus company based in Lingayen, Pangasinan bribes LTO officials in the region and the province for P30 thousand a month for the use of these improvised plates.
 “Dito sa Pangasinan nakaka half-a-million pesos na in a month ang LTO dahil diyan sa kambal plaka,” a source who asked anonymity told this paper.
 Guadiz, when asked about this accusation, said he did not know about the protection money that changed hands between rogue LTO personnel at the Region-1 office in La Union and the province and the conspiring franchisee .

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)