LEGAZPI CITY --- Jeepney drivers here voluntarily reduced their minimum fares due to scarcity of 25-centavo coins that otherwise should peg the minimum rate at P7.50 as announced by the Land Transportation and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) in Metro Manila Tuesday.

        "We are doing it although our organizations have yet to come up with official statements together with the regulatory branch of the government to ease the burden of our passengers who have craved for lower fare rates in the light of the lowering oil prices in the market today," a jeepney driver told this reporter Wednesday morning on condition of anonymity.

        Drivers plying the Legazpi-Daraga route and vice versa have been collecting P8 for the minimum rate when the prevailing rate was P8.50 for the first 4-kilometer travel. Now that the government announced a P7.50 rate they have started to collect P7, short of 25-centavos for the minimum.

        "One of the reasons for this is that it is very difficult to find those small brown coins worth P.25 from passengers," the same source said.

        The Bicol LTFRB has yet to issue a statement regarding fare roll backs being clamored by the riding public.

        Diesel, which is the main fuel for public transport now sells for as low as P36 per liter, which is way below the P39 per liter that prevailed two months ago.

        In Sorsogon, the tricycle drivers and operators have agreed to also voluntarily reduce by P.50 the fare they are charging passengers effective Dec. 15 following the series of oil price cuts.

        Because the fare rollback is voluntary on the part of the tricycle sector, a local legislation to that effect would only be to legitimatize the new rates and ease the burden somehow of the riding public.

        "We hail the concerned drivers and operators who have unselfishly reduced their rates even ahead of that snail-paced government-regulated matrix as we anticipate more oil price rollbacks in the coming weeks, Lucita Margallo of Daraga, Albay said.

        The region's jeepney drivers and operators have also reduced their rates by P .50 last week in compliance with an order from the LTFRB to that effect.

        Prices of basic commodities and agricultural products in the local markets have also started to stabilize with the recent developments in oil prices which pulled down their hauling expenses too.