Cabinet members back Angkas return; Palace to review 1-meter rule

BACK ON THE ROAD SOON Jasmine Alegre arranges rows of helmets for sale at a stall along the Batasan-IBP Road in Quezon City, as she anticipates the resumption of operations of motorcycle taxis. —GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

Four Cabinet officials in the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) are open to putting back on the road the motorcycle taxi service Angkas, while the Palace is set to “revisit’’ the aborted plan to relax the 1-meter distancing rule for public transport.

“Part of our plan is to increase the number of vehicles, especially ride-hailing motorcycle taxis, which can increase capacity to provide services to more than 400,000 workers,” Carlito Galvez Jr., the chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, said on Thursday.

Galvez said the plan was discussed in a recent meeting that he, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año and presidential spokesperson Harry Roque had with President Duterte.

The proposal to allow

Angkas to resume operations has also earned the support of Vince Dizon, president of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, who is serving as the government’s so-called testing czar in charge of overseeing the setup of coronavirus testing centers across the country. Dizon is also the presidential adviser on flagship programs and projects.

‘Eager to serve’

Earlier, Metro Manila mayors requested the IATF, the temporary body overseeing the government’s response to the health crisis, to allow the return of motorcycle taxis. On Monday, the task force endorsed to the House transportation committee a suggestion to extend the testing period for motorcycle taxis as regulators consider their legalization as a mode of public transport.

George Royeca, Angkas’ chief transport advocate, said “we are ready and eager to serve, especially our commuters who are required to go back to work but are faced with a critical shortage in public transportation.”

Angkas, he said, recorded “not a single incident of virus transmission” when its motorcycles were tapped to provide rides for health-care workers during the first few days of the coronavirus lockdown.

In July, Angkas and another motorcycle ride-hailing company, JoyRide, pushed for the use of wearable plastic barriers to help prevent virus transmission between drivers and passengers, but the idea was eventually dropped.

Cabinet meeting

Also on Thursday, Roque said the President would hold a Cabinet meeting on Monday next week to discuss how restrictions on economic activities could be further eased.

“We will revisit [the proposal to reduce] the 1-meter distancing in public transportation to .75 meters. The President has called for a full Cabinet meeting on Oct. 12 to discuss all these concerns,” the Palace official said.

Citing a briefing given early this week by acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua, Roque pointed out that “we are only at 30 percent [capacity] in transportation because of that one-meter rule.’’

“So we need another 20 percent to help reopen the economy if we will remain [under] general community quarantine,” he said. “We will be discussing if we can further ease restrictions on the economy and open it up to 75 percent in Metro Manila and nearby provinces, where our economy is heavily dependent on.” —REPORTS FROM MARIEJO S. RAMOS AND JULIE M. AURELIO