Phil Rabbit, Solid North bus firms settle parking tiff

By Dexter A. See 

BAGUIO CITY – Officials of two bus companies operating here agreed to settle their brewing conflict over the city’s award of the parking slot of an old bus company along Gov. Pack road to a new bus company.

During the regular session of the local legislative body, company officials of Solid North agreed to return to the management of Philippine Rabbit Bus lines one of its two parking slots previously awarded to the former by the city’s Transport and Traffic Management Committee to avoid further conflicts.

Earlier, Philippine Rabbit officials protested the sudden award of its two parking slots to Solid North despite having continuously paid its obligations with the local government representing parking fees for the said slots amounting to P14,000 since the company stopped serving the Baguio route in 2014 to rehabilitate its old buses.

Philippine Rabbit officials claimed now that they have around 10 to 16 newly acquired buses servicing its Baguio route, the company was surprised to learn that its two slots were already awarded to Solid North despite having consistently paid the required parking fees to the local government as evidenced by its receipts attached for the possible renewal of its memorandum of agreement.

In its latest action, the TTMC decided to return one parking slot to Philippine Rabbit while the other parking slot will remain with Solid North to serve as its staging area.

Solid North was able to purchase a property along South Drive as its terminal once it completes its development.

The concerned company officials of the two bus firms agreed to settle the dispute with the representative of Solid North committing to return to Philippine Rabbit the slot previously awarded to the former to avoid further complications in their relationships.

This agreement between the two bus companies will be submitted to the TTMC for appropriate action in the committee’s next regular meeting.

At present, Philippine Rabbit occupies the two slots it had been regularly paying for while Solid North will use two similar slots along the stretch of Gov. Pack road.

Gov. Pack road is temporarily being used as the city’s south-bound terminal while the city is scouting for an available area for a permanent south-bound terminal to decongest the roadline due to the buses coming in and out of the area.

The city government is planning on segregating some 10 hectares of the 92-hectare Baguio Dairy Farm owned by the agriculture department as a permanent south-bound terminal for all lowland bound buses to free most of the city’s main roads from the daily traffic created by the presence of passenger buses around the central business district area.