MANILA, Philippines — The government is studying the possibility of allowing buses and trains to operate in Metro Manila in a limited capacity despite the extended enhanced community quarantine being enforced in response to the coronavirus crisis.
According to Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases started discussing the proposal on Monday as acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua presented studies on allowing partial operation of public transportation.
Tugade said if buses and Metro Manila’s train systems will be allowed to reopen, these will not be made to operate at full capacity so that physical distancing could still be followed to prevent the transmission of the coronavirus disease.
“Kung papayagan po ng IATF magpa-partial operability tayo pero ‘yung operational capacity will be abbreviated upang ma-maintain ‘yung patakaran ng Department of Health sa social distancing,” Tugade said in a virtual Laging Handa public briefing aired over state-run PTV.
(If the IATF will allow the partial operability of public transportation, the operational capacity will be abbreviated to maintain the anti-COVID-19 protocols enforced by the Department of Health.)
In mid-March, President Duterte placed the entire Luzon, home to over 50 million people, under a month-long enhanced community quarantine. This comes just days after an attempt to restrict the movement of people living and working in Metro Manila to halt the spread of COVID-19.
The Luzon lockdown was supposed to end on April 13 but Duterte approved the proposal to have it extended until April 30.
The lockdown stopped all public transportation, banned mass gatherings, and strictly enforced home quarantine as work for the majority of the region’s residents was suspended. People are only allowed to go out to buy food and other basic necessities and in cases of emergency.
But the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) asked the government to allow necessary modes of public transportation to operate for now to support the daily commute of at least 250,000 workers, which the group estimated to be the workforce strength needed for the skeleton manpower of essential businesses in Metro Manila, the country’s economic and political center.
The number should increase over time as the government flattens the COVID-19 curve, the business group noted.
Duterte is set to decide Thursday whether he will lift, expand or loosen the lockdown.