Jitney Driver Lauds Dropped of Diesel Price

It Spikes His Day Income to P1K

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY – A public utility jeep (PUJ) driver welcomes the series of the huge dropped of diesel prices as his daily take home pay spikes.

Leandro Agustin, 50, said that with the present forty four pesos a liter of diesel for his 22 passengers capable PUJ plying Downtown Loop here, he could earn one thousand pesos net a day sans his four hundred pesos boundary fee to the operator of the franchised jeep and his expenses for the fuel on a day.

BEEP BEEP - Public Utility Jeep (PUJ) plying Dagupan City and Calasiao town in Pangasinan. (Photo grabbed from the internet)

“Other drivers pay “the boundary” to the owner of the jeep up to five hundred pesos a day. My advantage with them I  could use the jeep “up to sawa (without time limit)” like from 7 am to 7 pm while my counterparts have to return the vehicle at 5 pm to the operator,” he stressed.

Despite the forty nine pesos per liter of diesel in the past few weeks he cited he could still earn seven hundred pesos a day on that.

“Except Saturday or Sunday where the huge number of students are absent in the colleges around, I could still even pocket seven hundred pesos. What more if our request for a ten pesos per passenger from the present eight pesos increases from the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) have been approved?” he posed.

Agustin said however that  he could only ply around three times during weekdays because of the coding imposed by this city's local government and could only earn half at the weekends.

“Even my daily earning is much bigger than each of those minimum wage workers in the region who earned three hundred pesos a day. My work however is physically straining,” he cited in Tagalog.

The driver said that after he returned the PUJ at the owner’s house in Barangay Perez here, he felt as if he is still driving when he watches the evening television news in his home or when he retires at his bed.

“My antidote to get rid of this whirling feeling is to drink two bottles of 500 milliliter Red Horse Beer and a finger food of a plate of peanuts my wife bought at the nearby sari-sari (retail) store before I take my dinner,” he explained.

According to CNBC on its October news article’s “US crude posts 4% weekly loss, settling at $71.34, dragged down by market sell-off” the dropped of the prices of crude per barrel was due to a weaker economic outlook, trade concerns, higher oil prices, and a revision to Chinese data.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) report is the latest government assessment to predict weaker demand ahead and conclude that supply is adequate. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) made a similar moved recently.

“The bearish alarm bells are ringing for next year’s oil balance as market players brace for the return of a supply surplus,” said Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM.