Photo from Office of Sen. Grace Poe
MANILA, Philippines—In her first Metro Rail Transit (MRT) ride, Sen. Grace Poe on Friday morning got a taste of the ordeal that thousands of commuters go through every day.
Poe joined the long queue at the North Avenue station, experienced machine malfunction and took an hour and a half to get to Taft Avenue for an otherwise 30-minute ride, no thanks to technical glitches.
“I think we’ve been neglectful when it comes to the maintenance of our trains,” she said in a phone interview. “If there were more trains, there would be no problem.”
The senator took the MRT to experience firsthand the commuters’ plight ahead of Monday’s hearing on the state of the country’s public transport, which she will chair.
With a female staff and her daughter’s nanny in tow, Poe joined the long line at the North Avenue station around 8:20 a.m.
Escalator bottleneck
It took her 40 minutes to reach the ticket booth but not after experiencing a bottleneck because the passengers were made to take a nonfunctioning escalator instead of the stairway, she said.
After finally buying her card, she experienced firsthand a technical glitch: Her ticket got stuck at the turnstile.
The MRT guard had to manually take the lid off to get her card, an incident that could further delay boarding if it happens every now and then, she said.
Poe, who stepped into the coach reserved for women with her two companions, said the ride was going “pleasant” until the train stopped much longer than it should in one of the stations.
Technical glitch
The reason: There was a technical glitch, or a train malfunction at the Boni Serrano Avenue station.
Because of the long stop, they reached the Taft Avenue station in an hour and 30 minutes, instead of the usual 30 minutes.
“We got there a little before 10:30 a.m. It was a long ride. In spite of that, people are so patient. The government is so lucky that the people’s patience is so long and tested …. For them, it’s still their mode of transport,” she said.
In that station, she noticed that the escalator wasn’t functioning. She was told that the elevators in other stations were also in disrepair, a bane for persons with disabilities.
After the ride, the senator learned that MRT personnel advised commuters in the stations not to rush inside because she was riding in one of the coaches.
Questions to ask
Poe, acting chair of the subcommittee on public services, has invited Transportation Secretary Joseph Abaya and Winston Ginez of the Land Transportation, Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), among others, to Monday’s hearing.
“I’ll ask: How many trains are they adding? Have you tested their time in motion?” she said. “If this guy owns the MRT, is he just sitting and waiting for the dividend?”
Some senators called for an inquiry into an MRT crash two weeks ago.
An MRT train hurtled past the railway at its Taft Avenue station in Pasay City, leaving 38 passengers hurt. The defective train was being pushed by another train when the coupler between them broke, sending it crashing through the metal stopper and concrete barrier of the last station. The train broke down at the Magallanes station.
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What Grace Poe saw when she took the MRT