At 10:30AM last April 29, 2012, we were finally aboard bus #846 bound for Olongapo from Victory Liner’s Pasay Terminal. That was after lining up at the ticket booth for more than 30 minutes.
The moment we reached our seat, I immediately placed my bag on the floor, checked the AC, reclined my seat and prepared to doze off for the most part of the trip. Although it was one of Victory Liner’s older buses, it was okay, I am not a very picky traveler, I was even happy that it had a free wi-fi connection onboard.
There was a delay from the original 10:30AM departure since the ticketing agent messed up the tickets and overbooked the trip. There were several passengers holding the same seat numbers.
When we were finally north-bound, near the MRT Taft Station, we went on a halt without knowing why. Apparently the bus hit a vehicle so the driver and the conductor need to settle it with the owner and the traffic officer. We only knew of this because some passengers went up and checked the commotion. No one from the bus company relayed the incident to us.
I’m not sure how long the settlement went on but after that the bus U-turned and went south-bound when we reached Magallanes. Some of us speculated that we are going back to the Pasay Terminal maybe to transfer to a different bus. When we reached the terminal, we were not asked to alight the bus, so we stayed in our seats and after a few minutes, we were north-bound again only to turn back south AGAIN when we reached Magallanes. Ang gulo ng sentence, ang gulo kasi talaga ng nangyari. This time, the bus went inside the terminal.
We have been around Edsa for a good 2 hours. No one from the bus company spoke to us nor kept us informed of what the plan is. I went up to the driver’s seat and asked them what’s going on and I admit, I already raised my voice. Another guy who was travelling with his family (with two kids) also came up and demanded an explanation.
We went to the office and the staff there are already taking their lunch, before we could get an answer from them, we saw the other passengers alighting from our bus and transferring to another, so we ran back to where the bus was parked. Amidst the high sun, passengers were hauling kids and baggage to the new bus assigned to us.
So we did transfer to a different bus and finally we were off to Olongapo. I am so close to calling the trip off and getting off the bus but we had reservations with a resort. I am still lucky because the other passengers mentioned that they were already late for some appointments and some mentioned that their kids are already hungry.
Accidents happen and the passengers understand that.
The problem is, we were expecting for Victory Liner to be ready with a contingency plan for such events. WE NEVER GOT AN APOLOGY NOR AN EXPLANATION FROM ANYONE FROM THE BUS COMPANY AT ALL. It was a blatant disregard of the welfare of the passengers.
I went online to their website and tried to fill-out their Customer Satisfaction Survey – (1) there’s no option for the Pasay-Olongapo route (2) after filling out the form and clicking on “Submit” the page froze, it did not go anywhere. I’m not sure if the survey got submitted at all (even after trying thrice) because up until now I did not receive any communication from Victory Liner even if I left my mobile number and my email address. Very poor customer service.
I cannot say that I will never take another Victory Liner trip again but in my next travels, if there is an option, I will definitely go with a different bus company.
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