Press Release
April 23, 2008

Earth Day Shame
Pia: 'Red tape keeping green jeeps off the road'

Senator Pia Cayetano took the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) to task for its failure to come up with a system for the classification and registration of electric jeepneys (e-jeeps), almost a year after the environment-friendly vehicles were first introduced in July 2007.

"Not even good projects aimed at promoting a cleaner environment are spared from bureaucratic red tape, even in this day and age of global warming."

"The development of the electric jeep or e-jeep may be the best thing to have happened to public transportation; it's an ingenious Filipino invention that's supposed to address urban air pollution, congestion in our streets and climate change."

"None of these vehicles are able to ply public roads to this day, however, because of the unexplained delay of DOTC in framing the guidelines for their classification and subsequent registration as public utility vehicles," Cayetano, Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, said.

Citing reports from the pioneers of the e-jeep, Green Renewable Independent Power Producer (GRIPP) and its partners Greenpeace and Solar Energy Co. (Solarco), she said the application for the classification and registration of the e-jeeps has been languishing for almost a year now with the office of DOTC Director Ildefonso Patdu.

"I have even written DOTC Secretary Leandro Mendoza last March, but our office hasn't received a reply even if my staff kept following up," she rued.

She noted that the very first e-jeep was launched in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, in July last year, with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo herself endorsing the emission-free, electric-powered vehicle. But since then, the e-jeep has been kept off the road, gathering dust in the GRIPP showroom in Bacolod City.

"There are also e-jeeps in the cities of Makati, Baguio and Puerto Princesa. But pending the DOTC's guidelines, none of these can serve as mass public transport, for which they were originally meant. Sadly, the e-jeeps remain 'colorums' constricted to green exhibits and showrooms."

An environmentalist herself, Cayetano has personally promoted the e-jeep across the country. She used it as an official vehicle in a recent visit to Bacolod City and as lead car for her annual women's run, "Pinay in Action." She was given a tour on the e-jeep by Baguio City Mayor Peter Rey Bautista around Burnham Park last March.

"At a time when the price of crude oil has hit a record $117 per barrel, in a period when oil prices are surging alongside the increasingly worsening impacts of climate change caused by the combustion of fossil fuels, the DOTC's inaction on the classification and registration of the Electric Jeepneys is more than just negligent. It is outrageous and shameful."

The e-jeep runs entirely on electricity and can cover a maximum distance of 100 km to 120 km. on a single charge of eight hours. This means that if the e-jeepney will ply a route like Washington-Ayala, which is around 5 kilometers, it can run for at least three days on a single charge, which would cost a mere P110-P140. The e-jeep can run a maximum of 40 kph, an ideal speed for trafiic congested city driving. It can seat twelve passengers at the back (animan) and three on front.

Cayetano is set to file a resolution directing the DOTC to expedite the classification and consequent registration of electric jeepneys as public utility vehicles (PUV).

"This project is for the entire country's benefit. We must not allow the brazen inaction of the DOTC to prevent the early entry of the Philippines into the age of electric transport," she concluded.

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