What It Means
- The LTFRB fare hike petitions are still unresolved five months after a nearly identical round was approved, then suspended within a day by Malacañang in March.
- The government raised its PUV fuel discount from ₱10 to ₱12 per liter starting August 15, well below the ₱20 per liter and full PUV coverage that the LTFRB itself had recommended.
- Diesel has eased from its July 28 peak of ₱93.60 per liter to roughly ₱88, but that still sits far above the ₱55 baseline recorded before the Middle East conflict began.
- Additional hearings with the DEPDev, DOLE, and DOE now stand between the current petitions and any actual fare decision, pushing resolution further out.
- Transport group Manibela has already said the discount is not enough and renewed its call for a fare increase, arguing subsidy relief is temporary while a fare hike is not.
The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board confirmed on July 30 that the LTFRB fare hike petitions filed by five transport groups were under active deliberation. Two weeks later, the petitions remain unresolved. What moved instead was the fuel discount attached to them, and the size of that move says more about government priorities than the hearings themselves.
The LTFRB Fare Hike Petitions Cover Nearly Every Mode Again
Five transport groups filed the requests driving the LTFRB fare hike petitions now under review, led by the Pagkakaisa ng mga Samahan ng Mga Tsuper at Operator Nationwide, which is asking for a flat ₱10 increase to the minimum fare. Piston separately asked for ₱10, Manibela for ₱5, and a third group for ₱2. The LTFRB is also reviewing filings from the Metro Comet Transport Service Cooperative, the UV Express National Alliance of the Philippines, and the United Transportation Coalition of the Philippines. All five cite the same driver behind the LTFRB fare hike petitions: operational costs that have outpaced what current fares can recover, tied to a fresh run of oil price increases stemming from renewed conflict in the Middle East.
That driver was not abstract in late July. Diesel in Metro Manila jumped by ₱7.30 per liter on July 28 alone, pushing pump prices to ₱93.60, on top of a ₱10.68 increase the week before. Prices have since rolled back to around ₱88 per liter as of mid-August, but that is still roughly ₱33 above the ₱55 diesel was trading at before the conflict escalated. Operators petitioning against that gap are not exaggerating their exposure. The math has improved slightly. It has not closed.
Government Chose the Discount Over the Decision Again
In March, the LTFRB approved a comparable round of fare increases, averaging roughly 19 percent across jeepneys, buses, and TNVS units. President Marcos suspended that hike within 24 hours, and the government pivoted to direct cash relief for PUV drivers while leaving commuters and fuel dependent MSMEs to absorb the same cost pressure on their own. That relief evolved into a standing ₱10 per liter fuel discount for jeepneys and UV Express units, launched in April and running nationwide by May, funded through a ₱1.5 billion allocation and capped at 150 liters a week per unit.
The same substitution just happened again, only faster and more deliberately. As fresh petitions piled up in late July, the LTFRB itself recommended expanding the discount to ₱20 per liter and extending it to all public utility vehicles, at an estimated cost of ₱4.5 billion a month. The Cabinet, under Executive Secretary Ralph Recto, approved only a partial version: the discount rises to ₱12 per liter starting August 15, still limited to jeepneys and UV Express, with no confirmed budget or timeline for how long it will run. The government did not just delay the fare hike decision. It rejected its own regulator’s proposed relief in favor of a smaller one, while the actual LTFRB fare hike petitions sit with three additional agencies still to weigh in.
The Regulator Absorbs the Political Cost Each Cycle
The structural weak point sits with the LTFRB itself. The board operates on a cost recovery model, reviewing operator inputs and working toward adjustments meant to reflect real operating costs. But March showed that any approval it issues can be overridden by the executive within a single news cycle, and August shows that even the board’s own subsidy recommendation gets scaled down before it reaches drivers. Chairperson Vigor Mendoza II has now brought DEPDev, DOLE, and DOE into the process to validate operator cost data before any recommendation goes forward, a step that was not part of the March timeline at all.
That additional layer buys the government more room to manage the politics of a decision it has already shown it prefers to avoid. Every added agency in the review chain is another point where the LTFRB fare hike petitions can stall without anyone having to say no directly. Operators are left petitioning a body whose decisions are provisional by default, and the LTFRB fare hike petitions now on the table carry that same uncertainty. Manibela’s own response makes the asymmetry explicit: the group welcomed the discount increase but called it temporary relief, insisting only a fare hike delivers durable income for drivers.
MSMEs Carry the Same Cost With No Petition Channel
Transport operators at least have a formal channel to seek recovery through the LTFRB fare hike petitions process, unreliable as that outcome has proven to be. Businesses that depend on fuel for logistics, delivery, or employee transport have no equivalent mechanism, and the discount increase to ₱12 per liter does nothing for them since it covers only jeepneys and UV Express units. Every diesel increase since January has moved directly into their operating costs with no fare board to petition and no subsidy program earmarked for their sector.
Diesel near ₱88 a liter, tracked weekly against the Department of Energy’s permitted price ranges, is now the baseline against which the LTFRB fare hike petitions are being measured, not a temporary spike expected to reverse to pre-conflict levels. The government has now chosen the cheaper, narrower relief option twice in five months rather than let the fare hike petitions resolve on their own timeline, and the transport groups still waiting on a decision have already said in public that a discount is not a substitute for the fare they filed for.
Track more regulatory shifts that affect your business in Policy & Regulation section of Hemos PH.
