The head of the Bacolod Traffic Authority Office yesterday denied having said that the issuance of body number stickers is compulsory on the part of public utility vehicle operators and challenged Councilor Carlos Jose Lopez to produce copies of the minutes of the April 24 committee hearing to prove it.

Rogelio Ebreo said he also did not say that if the operators did not buy the BTAO distributed vehicle body number sticker this would constitute a traffic violation.

Lopez, chairman of the Sangguniang Panlungsod Committee on Transportation, said the transport groups have complained that they are required to pay a certain amount to buy body sticker numbers to help the BTAO determine if they are colorum or not. And according to the group it is compulsory.

So, after the hearing, he requested that the issuance of body sticker numbers be stopped since it is illegal and that he will have it investigated by the National Bureau of Investigation, he said.

Lopez said the big part is that he (Ebreo) is not issuing official receipts unlike other government agencies.

Lopez said the big problem is also that Ebreo collected money from different individuals without proper authority and a law to govern it. So he has to account for the money he has collected, he said.

The body number stickers cost P300 for PUJ's and taxi's and P150 for tricycles.

Ebreo said the body number stickers are given to the BTAO on consignment basis and not a single centavo was spent by the city. So they only pay the supplier, Espinosa Sign, whatever body number sticker is being purchased by the operator.

He said that, based on the records of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, out of the 3,903 public utility jeepneys operating in Bacolod, only 2,500 have registered. So there are only 64 percent PUJ's legally operating in the city.

Out of 852 taxis operating in the city he claimed, only 100 units or 12 percent are registered with LTFRB and have franchises. So many colorum vehicles are operating in Bacolod and they have a hard time identifying them and the only way is to issue body number stickers.*CGS

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