Taxi Protest Averted With Motion To Eliminate El Porteo
In the face of possibly the biggest demonstration by Taxi drives come Monday, yesterday, 38 Legislative Assembly deputies approved a motion that would pretend to eliminate "porteo" - the private or informal taxi services.

Yesterday's motion will dispense with the publication of the process and go direct to a commission. What the move means, it will not have to wait the the publication in the official government newspaper, La Gaceta, and the usual month to detect any irregularities in the proposal.

With this move, the support for the proposal will rest solely with the commission and if there is the political will, it could come into law within less than a month.

The legislative commission is made of, among others, Federico Malavassi, Laura Chinchilla (vice-president elect), Gloria Valerín, José Miguel Corrales and Jorge Álvarez.

Gilberth Ureña, spokesperosn for the Foro Nacional de Taxistas - taxi association - said "this is an absolute triumph because were were crawling but now we walking and will soon be running".


It is expected that taxi drivers will follow the lead of the Foro Nacional de Taxistas and will be patient for the next couple of weeks while the proposed legislation makes its way through the system. Ureña said that the protest planned for Monday (March 27) will be on hold and will go in effect if the project gets turned down.

Critics however say this is just another stall tactic.

One who is to benefit is victor Salazar, president of the Autotransportes San Jorge, who assures that if the proposal falls in the hands of the Asuntos Juridicos, there it will be stuck. Porteador Salazar said, "the taxi leaders are fooling their membership, that law will not pass."

Monday's protest was to have been stronger and more militant than the protest of two weeks earlier. Taxi drivers vowed to paralyze the country and with the support of bus drivers, have people walking, pressuring legislators to heed their demands.