The Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) have been busy doing some spinning. They keep insisting – complete with infographics – that the jeepney phaseout is actually a modernization plan that will make these public transport vehicles safer for the public and kinder to the environment. After Monday’s transport strike, they’ve insisted that it wasn’t nationwide at all, belittling its effect on the commuting public, towards asserting that the strike was no problem at all.

Which behooves the question: if it was no problem at all, why is the LTFRB even threatening suspension of jeepney franchises that joined in the strike?

Sometimes the magnitude of the protest is measured by the kind of reaction it generates from government agencies and the powers-that-be. And in the case of the Monday strike vis a vis the damage control and spin that LTFRB and DOTr are doing, it’s pretty clear it was far larger than they will care to admit. (more…)