President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the opening of additional bus routes in Metro Manila to ease commuters’ woes caused by the limits imposed on public transportation to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus as the government loosens quarantine restrictions to get the economy back to work.
“The President feels the struggles of Juan de la Cruz in commuting. The President has given directives to add more bus routes in Metro Manila starting Friday,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque told a press briefing on Thursday.
Roque said the Department of Transportation (DOTr) would open three bus routes on Friday and three more next Monday.
The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) will meet with bus operators to work out deployment on the additional routes, he added.
Emerging crisis
Mr. Duterte’s directive came as lawmakers called the acute lack of public utility vehicles caused by the DOTr and the LTFRB’s refusal to allow jeepneys back on the road an emerging crisis and accused transport officials of favoring a certain sector of the public transportation industry.
Opening Friday as part of 31 bus routes planned by the DOTr are Route 1: Monumento-Balagtas, Bulacan; Route 17: Edsa-Montalban, Rizal; and Route 18: Naia Loop.
Opening next Monday are Route 3: Monumento-Valenzuela Gateway Complex (VGC); Route 11: Gilmore-Taytay, Rizal; and Route 21: Monumento-San Jose del Monte, Bulacan.
The services are expected to reduce the lack of public transportation in the eastern and northernmost parts of Metro Manila usually served by buses, jeepneys and UV Express vans.
Transport officials have refused to allow jeepneys and UV Express vans to resume operations under general community quarantine, insisting it is impossible to implement spacing on these vehicles.
They prefer what they call “modern jeepneys”—actually minibuses with seats like those on full-size buses.
But these minibuses are so few and they don’t operate round the clock, and they don’t serve inner-city routes along which businesses are located.
Aid for drivers
Earlier, the DOTr and the LTFRB opened the Angat-Quezon Avenue and the Dasmariñas-Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange. But the absence of jeepneys at the end of these routes makes it impossible for people to get to their jobs in inner Metro Manila.
On Wednesday, Roque said the displaced jeepney drivers were being considered for hiring as contact tracers, but transport groups rejected the idea, saying jeepney drivers had no training to track down suspected coronavirus carriers and that the job was too risky for them.
On Thursday, Roque said the government was considering giving the jeepney drivers financial assistance to tide them over during the suspension of their operations.
“We know how difficult life is for them since they cannot resume their work. So an additional aid is being readied just for jeepney drivers,” he said.