More companies have expressed interest to provide reloadable payment cards for free after AF Payments Inc. rejected the Department of Transportation’s (DoTr) call to give commuters “beep” cards for free. This is according to Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade on Tuesday, less than a day after President Rodrigo Duterte said it would mandate the cards to be given free of charge and after the company reiterated that it was not profiting from the sale of the cards, which cost P80 each. “Kahapon lang ho, marami ang nagparamdam sa akin. Mayroong mga tumawag na they are interested to participate in the program and they are interested to pursue our desire to have the beep card be given for free,” Tugade said in an interview on the CNN Philippines cable channel. But he clarified that bus operators were the ones sealing deals with service providers and not his department. Despite its refusal to waive beep card fees, AF Payments committed to provide 125,000 free beep cards.
