DOTr reopens consolidation application for PUV operators

A ‘barker’ guides drivers along a street in Manila in April 2024. — File photo by Agence France-Presse

[Updated May 7, 2025, 4:43 p.m.] 

MANILA, Philippines  — The Department of Transportation (DOTr) on Wednesday announced the reopening of the consolidation application for public utility vehicle (PUV) operators.

DOTr chief Vince Dizon signed Department Order (DO) No. 2025-009 on Tuesday, which provides the guidelines for the reopening for consolidation.

Previously, DOTr set the consolidation deadline for November 2024.

However, the document cited complaints regarding this deadline, prompting the DOTr to form a special committee to review the Public Transportation Modernization Program, which mandates the consolidation.

“[I]t is necessary to reopen the application for consolidation and provide guidelines for the issuance of PA (provisional authority) for unconsolidated individual operators,” the DO stated.

Under this new order, eligible operators are now allowed to either join or form Transport Service Entities (TSEs) in routes with at least 60 percent consolidated units, provided they previously held authority to operate there.

TSEs refer to the legal entity of transport operators with an issued Certificate of Public Convenience (CPC) or pending applications for consolidation, which may accept new members within the limits of the Number of Authorized Units (NAU) assigned to the route.

The order states that PAs will be valid for one year and shall be subject to extension and renewal in accordance with the subsequent implementing guidelines to be issued by the Land Transport Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB).

It also maintained that PAs shall only be issued to the individual operators upon strict compliance with existing and future policies of the Department and LTFRB and the roadworthiness test of the Motor Vehicle Inspection System of the Land Transportation Office.

Most PUVs applied, but…

A total of 86.23 percent or 165,334 out of 191,730 PUVs have complied with the November 2024 consolidation deadline, according to LTFRB spokesperson Ariel Inton.

READ: LTFRB denies it falsified its modernization program data

Inton, however, said that 86.23 percent have applied, but only 43 percent, or half, are already done with the consolidation.

The rest, or about 43 percent, is still finishing the process of the application of their consolidation, but are nevertheless allowed to operate.

PUVs consist of buses, jeepneys, UV Express vehicles and minibuses.

READ: PUVs yet to consolidate get ‘warning’ up to May 15

‘Extends the same failed framework’

Transport group Piston on Wednesday denounced this new DOTr order.

Piston national president Mody Floranda said the new order is “another measure that places the burden squarely on the backs of small PUV drivers and operators.”

“While DO-2025-009 purports to offer a ‘more equitable and just transition’ by allowing individual operators to reapply for consolidation into Transport Service Entities (TSEs), it merely extends the same failed framework of forced consolidation that have decimated drivers’ incomes, displaced operators without access to capital, and transferred control of routes to large, politically connected cooperatives and corporations,” Floranda said in a statement.

Instead, Floranda reiterates Piston’s long-standing position that the PTMP must be scrapped.

“Instead of rebranded consolidation orders, the government must respect and uphold individual operators’ right to freedom of association and redesign a public transport development program anchored on progressive, nationalized, and pro-people principles,” Floranda said.

“The DO-2025-009 is a rebranded extension of failed consolidation schemes that have left tens of thousands of drivers impoverished and commuters underserved. Piston demands the DOTr to immediately allow all unconsolidated operators to operate, rescind all consolidation quotas, reinstate 5-year franchises, and scrap the entire PTMP. Anything less is a betrayal of public service and an assault on the livelihoods of the nation’s transport workers,” he continued. /DS/MR