Know Your Bus Series - Ang Katutubo ng Katimugan

Southern Philippines Tribal Transport Multi-purpose Cooperative or SPTTMC, started as a local tribal service in 2016 for Lumad Tribe and Indigenous People of Panay Island and Mindanao, eventually they see some opportunity by applying the provision on Republic Act 8371 under Chapter 4, Section 13, “the right to pursue economic, social and cultural development”, under this provision they ventured and invested for their own independent economic activities thru transportation and several livelihood programs, part of this program is to ensure government support and acknowledge their independent economic activities, they filed a lot of cases, some are still on going and some are already closed or dropped.

But because of unclear Guidelines of RA 8371, some government agency specially the Transportation Agencies, LTFRB and LTO didn’t acknowledged the existence and the operation of SPTTMC, resulting in apprehension and stopping the buses on mid trip, until today some of the buses are still on LTFRB’s custody and still waiting the court resolution and decision if for them to release it.

Due to some long standing and unresolved court cases, SPTTMC's bus operation is halted and the cooperative also ceased its activities due to lack of funding and also government support, most of remained bus units are already sold to other entities and sadly some are scrapped.

On its operating days, they served Iloilo and Antique areas from Marikina BFCT Terminal, they also served Davao and Camotes Island on its early days, for the bus units they've used mostly second hand buses from several bus companies, majority of which were Nissan Diesel buses, but they also used MAN, KIA, Daewoo and Hino buses.

The founding people of the cooperative tapped PBPA to provide them a bus livery that comply to their cultural requirements and rituals, PBPA provided them 2 livery designs that complied to their requirements. 

In the end, they are just a victim of their own idea of self reliance, envisioning a way of income generation for Lumads and Indigenous People, sadly due to lack of support their vision is still far from fruition.