QUEZON CITY, (PIA) -- The decision on the filed fare increase petitions of the three rail lines in Metro Manila is expected to be issued by the end of March 2023.

This, following a public hearing last Friday, Feb. 17, on the petition filed by Metro Manila Transit Line 3 (MRT-3), Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT-1) and Line 2 (LRT-2) requesting that they be allowed to implement fare hikes.

It was revealed during the hearing that LRT-1 laid out their request to allow them to increase the fare from P17 to P44 from the current P11 to P30 only.

At LRT-2's request, it wanted to implement a fare increase of P14 to P33 on stored value tickets from the current P12 to P28 and from P15 to P35 on single value tickets from the current P15 to P30.

Meanwhile, the MRT-3 is asking for a fare hike of from P4 to P6.

According to Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC), which oversees the operation of the LRT-1, they have lost almost P32 billion in their expenses, which should be covered by a 5% per year fare hike.

However, they were only allowed to raise fares in 2015, said Atty. Jhimmy Santiago, who is the general counsel of LRMC, right now they are operating at a loss especially and their ridership fell in the year 2020 to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA), which is the operator of LRT-2, assured that such fare increase petition will not affect passengers who only make short trips or up to two stations.

According to LRTA's Atty. Hernando Cabrera, 17% of their passengers will not experience a fare increase.

Meanwhile, some groups strongly oppose the request of the management of such rail lines.

They also questioned the timing of the petitions, because they said it was not timely to coincide with the rising prices of goods. (PIA-NCR)