Provincial LGUs buck reduced distancing in public transport

LEGAZPI CITY — Officials in Bicol, Western Visayas and Cebu City have opposed the move to shorten physical distancing in public transportation and called on the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to abandon the proposal.

Legazpi City Mayor Noel Rosal on Friday said the DOTr proposal to reduce the one-meter physical distancing rule in public transport was “dangerous” and should be rejected.

The DOTr on Thursday decided to suspend the implementation of the less-than-a-meter distancing policy on public transport after the Department of Health reported over 3,000 additional new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases.

Volatile

But for Rosal, the policy should not be implemented at all, particularly at this time when the “coronavirus situation is still volatile” and because of the high risk of infections since there could be commuters who were actually virus carriers but were asymptomatic.

Lawyer Anthony Nuyda, Department of the Interior and Local Government regional director and chair of the Bicol Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, also said in a telephone interview on Friday that the one-meter distance rule could not be set aside at this time when virus cases were still rising.

For Albay Gov. Al Francis Bichara, however, the issue should not be about physical distancing inside public transport, saying that a final policy on the matter would not make any difference to Albayanos unless the government would allow the resumption of interprovincial bus travel that was suspended after the pandemic struck in March.

In Western Visayas, officials of the provinces of Iloilo, Guimaras, Capiz and Negros Occidental and the independent cities of Iloilo and Bacolod held an online meeting on Wednesday and collectively pushed to retain the 1-m minimum distancing in public utility vehicles, according to Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas.

Ill-advised

Officials of Aklan and Antique failed to attend the meeting. But Antique Gov. Rhodora Cadiao earlier said the DOTr plan, while “helpful to the economy especially for drivers and commuters,” was “ill-advised for the health” of the people.

In Cebu City, Mayor Edgardo Labella also decided to retain the 1-m physical distance inside public utility vehicles to avoid another surge in coronavirus infections.

“With due respect to our leaders from [the] DOTr, here in Cebu City, we will continue the imposition of 1-m distance because we can never take the risk [because] the virus is very much around,” he told reporters. —reports from Mar Arguelles, Nestor P. Burgos and Ador Vincent Mayol