STARTING APRIL 1, provincial buses will be banned from entering the City of Manila.

Mayor Alfredo Lim made the announcement after a dialogue with different bus operators operating in Manila.

Lim said that based on an earlier compromise agreement, he had allowed provincial bus operators to enter the city provided they agree to a rerouting scheme to reduce traffic in some areas, especially on Taft Avenue.

However, it was now necessary to impose a ban considering the pollution caused by the buses as well as the heavy traffic these cause in the city, he added.

Workers and students have also complained of the snail-paced traffic in some streets because of buses which pick up and drop off passengers just about anywhere.

Lim said he had also heard of allegations that some traffic policemen and enforcers were receiving bribe money from the operators of buses who had turned the Lawton area into a terminal.

?Almost every day, we take a lot of flak because of the bribe money which is supposedly changing hands in the Lawton area. We hear allegations about how the money is going to traffic policemen, the Manila Traffic and Parking Bureau (MTPB) and just about everyone else. How can we remove this suspicion from people?s minds? Probably the only way is to make sure that these buses never enter the city again,? he said.

Meanwhile, Lim ordered his men to immediately act on complaints about traffic policemen or MTPB personnel receiving bribes from bus operators.

At the same time, he called on bus owners to consider the general public?s general welfare over their profit, saying they were supposed to be engaged in public service.