A passenger shared his story, which revealed a new modus operandi of one of the taxi drivers in NAIA.
Ralph Perez, a passenger from Iloilo, posted on he nearly became a victim of NAIA taxi drivers modus operandi.
“After getting off a midnight plane from Iloilo, I went to the closed-loop bus stop but was told that the next bus won’t be until 7 am and not wanting to pay for the exorbitant prices of the yellow airport taxis, I walked to where the sign said metered taxis.
I saw this cab, Bernadell Taxi with plate number UWN 692.
I asked the driver who had his window open: “Manong, metro lang po.” (Meter only)
He said yes so I went in. As soon as I sat down he pointed to something that didn’t look like the regular meter and pointed to the digits at the end and said: “Sir, ito po ang metro natin. Bale 30 per 1km. 30 po yung flag down. Nasa zero zero po ah.” (Here’s our meter. It is P30 per 1km. P30 is the flag down. It’s in zero.)
I just nodded thinking it was just another model of a meter but worked the same.
He asked me to pay for the 20 pesos fee on the skyway and I handed it to him.
As we were speeding through the skyway, I saw that the counter he pointed at earlier was furiously counting the distance but the price remained at 44.
I asked him: “Manong, paano ko mapapareimburse kung ganyan yan?” (How can I reimburse if it’s like that?)”
Perez continued to question the taxi driver’s meter system. The driver then revealed that the meter is not actually P30 per kilometer but P300.
NAIA taxi drivers new modus operandi
Perez then decided to pay and go down. He continued, “The whole time I was trying to open the door and I couldn’t. I couldn’t roll down the window too. I was imagining all sorts of scenarios. I didn’t want to end up in some ditch in some dark alley so I decided I should just promise to give him money by withdrawing from an ATM.
He agreed to let me off at some ATM after I give him the money I’m supposed to owe him. We passed several and he wouldn’t let me get off because he said there was no pedestrian lane but I noticed it was because those ATMs had guards near them. We passed some MAPSA Officers and I thought of screaming out to them or waving crazily to catch their attention but I doubted if they could hear or see me from the closed car. We got to Jupiter and he still wouldn’t let me get off despite the many ATMs that dotted the length of the street.
Finally, he saw the BPI at corner Jupiter and Polaris where it was relatively dark and isolated.
There were vendors across the street, and some drunk was sitting on the road being pulled up by his girlfriend. Maybe the driver thought, I wouldn’t think I could get help there. He went down to let me out of the cab and I took my stuff with me and went up the steps to the bank. After pretending to take out my card from my bag, I took out my phone and hastily took a pic of the cab. I made to run towards the people across the street and knowing he wouldn’t be able to keep me cornered; he zoomed away.”
Perez said he ran to a police vehicle parked along Makati Avenue, but no one was there. He also tried calling 911 and 8888 emergency hotlines, but they are not working.
He also said he contacted the NAIA SMS hotline and NAIA FB page but have not received replies yet.
Other netizens shared they also experienced the new modus operandi of NAIA taxi drivers.
