We went to Batangas last August 24. While waiting for the bus to depart, we asked around and were told that rental vans can be found inside the Batangas Pier. Upon arrival there, we talked with several van drivers and asked for their rental rates as we were planning to get to the cities of Batangas and Lipa mostly concentrating on their old churches and heritage houses.
We were quite surprised to know that the rental rate was more than what we expected as we have been using vans in most of our local travels for years now. We tried to haggle with the drivers but they were in unison with their rental rates. It turned out that the reason behind their higher rental rate was they had to pay for their “parking fee” right there inside the pier. We were told that any vans who took passengers from the pier should pay this questionable fee at P700.00 per travel.
The poor van driver/operators were not given any official receipt but instead only a sheet of paper as parking slip. They said that officially it was P425.00 but they never saw any official receipt nor city ordinance not even the Batangas pier’s rules and regulations if it was actually that amount.
Batangas pier is quite huge and is a jump-off point to several islands to other parts in the Philippines. Just imagine the number of passengers that come and go everyday and most likely, a lot of them use these rental vans. If there are 10 rental vans travelling at least once a day, somebody too lucky and probably too powerful is receiving at least P7,000.00 a day. Shouldn’t the proper authorit It is just so saddening that with Batangas pier’s huge size and likely higher number of passengers, the mere rental rates of these rental vans were still under the control of some unscrupulous people who are powerful enough that even the rental van drivers were afraid to mention names like those people were reincarnations of the infamous Voldermort in the Harry Potter book series.
Aside from that, I am wondering why the proper authorities cannot do something about it. I have already been to several ports and piers and most of the time, the Department of Tourism has a hand on the rental rates most especially if the travel involves tourism and if not, other authorized government agencies handle the setting up the rental rates. In that way, anomalies like these are avoided and the passengers get a better deal. How else will we be able to promote better tourism offers if even rental cars/vans are easily subjected to unnecessary additional rates which only few people could reap the benefits.
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