THE reason for the demise of the 111-year-old Philtranco bus company, industry sources said, was not the one reported in the papers, which was “irreversible losses” from its operations. The historic bus company, as bluntly put by industry observers, was literally “shot by the sheriff.” Let us make the “sheriff” plural.
Industry sources said sheriffs auctioned off critical parts of the company piece by piece, especially the routes, which are, based on industry benchmarks, the most precious asset of a provincial bus company. The sheriff sales were held to pay off claims from labor union members — all former employees, who won huge compensation awards in labor disputes. Philtranco, formerly named Pantranco South Express Inc. — to distinguish it from Pantranco North Express Inc., which was another company under the Mantrade Group — had choice routes that covered entire regions in the Visayas and Mindanao, all touching Metro Manila. With many niche routes auctioned off, what remained of Philtranco was a shell company and the slow process of dying that led to the decision to close after more than a century of operations.
The sources said one small bus company that operated hand-me-down buses in secondary routes mostly in the Visayas became competitive after acquiring long-distance routes touching Metro Manila from the Philtranco sheriff auctions.
Philtranco, formerly Pantranco South, is now history, along with Pantranco North, its former namesake and likewise a giant in Luzon bus operations. (Pantranco North and Pantranco South, during their glory days, had more routes than the biggest bus company today, the Ceres/Vallacar of the Yanson Group.) Shuttered for good, along with many other iconic bus companies that used to serve the economic core of Luzon and the country as well — Metro Manila, Southern Tagalog and Central Luzon. There is, figuratively, a vast graveyard for shuttered provincial bus companies. Other bus companies which were so dominant that they were deemed by the public as synonymous with provincial travel during their glory days — like Colgate for toothpaste — are likewise skeletons of their once-dominant selves today.
All the glory days have come to pass.
For most of the pre-North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) years, a bus company was called the “King of the McArthur Highway,” because it dominated the routes between Metro Manila and the Central Luzon provinces using the old McArthur Highway. The giant bus firm was formed in 1926 and was called La Mallorca-Pambusco, the result of the merger between La Mallorca and the Pampanga Bus Company. Ironically, after severe operational losses that mostly stemmed from labor disputes, what was left of the struggling company was sold to... Philtranco. One of the heirs of Geronimo Enriquez Sr., the La Mallorca-Pambusco owner more known as “Hitler,” established a smaller Pampanga-based bus company called Macabebe Express. After a short life, Macabebe Express was sold to a new buyer.
The Metro Manila-Central Luzon routes have the most number of shuttered bus companies because of one simple reason: the intense competition. These routes attracted the most number of new entrants seeking the proverbial pot of gold, only to realize that operating a bus company is not simply a matter or having routes and running buses. From the latter part of the last century to the first decade of the current one, we can list the following casualties, closed and forgotten: Aladdin Bus, Panther Bus, Macabebe Express, Philippine Rapid and a few names which I have missed due to senior moments.
In an earlier era, the prominent closures included Villa Rey Transit and Halili Transit.
After the closure of the La Mallorca-Pambusco, the title “King of McArthur Highway” was ceded by the riding public to Philippine Rabbit, a bus company founded right after the proclamation of the Philippine Republic in 1946 by two prominent Tarlac families, the Buan and Paras families. During its peak, Philippine Rabbit was a land transport juggernaut, with routes that included Manila-Baguio, Manila-Bataan although its main area of operations then were the routes between Manila and Tarlac and Manila and Angeles City in Pampanga.
Today, that leviathan has shrunk. It still has a few buses serving towns in Tarlac and Angeles City but it is definitely past its dominant days.
The biggest collapse in the Manila-Southern Tagalog routes is inarguably the closure of the giant BLT (Batangas, Laguna, Tayabas) Bus Company. It was founded by the wealthy Potenciano family (the family with the hospital along EDSA in Mandaluyong). Serious students of corporate failures should study what went wrong. It had the choicest routes in the areas where it was operating and it had strategic terminals both in Metro Manila and the provinces. For decades, it was the most dominant bus company operating in Southern Tagalog.
BLTB Co. had everything until it had nothing.
