THE Land Transportation, Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) has released the guidelines for the extended deadline of the PUV consolidation.
It is contained under a memorandum circular detailing the conditions of the extended deadline to April 30.
With Circular 2024-001, the LTFRB said that the unconsolidated individual operators are allowed to operate until April 30, if they are registered with the Land Transportation Office (LTO).
They should also have a valid personal passenger accident insurance coverage.
“The authority to operate the units of all unconsolidated individual operators is extended until 30 April 2024, provided the unit is currently registered with the LTO and has a valid Personal Passenger Accident Insurance Coverage,” stated the three-page document.
The said clarification came after some transport groups who are against the consolidation component of the Public Utility Vehicle (PUV) Modernization Program complained during a congressional hearing that their members were having difficulty renewing their vehicle registration.
They claimed that they were being apprehended due to the lack of consolidation documents.
According to the government they are expecting the PUV operators will use the deadline extension to form or join a transport cooperative or corporation.
Likewise the new memo allows the consolidation of operators in existing rationalized routes that have zero consolidated entities.
A new cooperative or corporation can be formed if “the number of unconsolidated units in a particular route is at least 40 percent of the total number of authorized units,” according to the memo.
However, if the number of consolidated units is already above 60 percent, consolidation shall not be allowed.
