Senator Loren Legarda FILE PHOTO
Where was the Highway Patrol Group (HPG) on Tuesday?
This was the question asked on Wednesday by Sen. Loren Legarda who, like thousands of Metro Manila commuters, was stranded for hours as traffic ground to a halt that night.
Legarda told reporters she was stuck in traffic for two hours from Pasay to Makati, but she did not care because she was in a vehicle unlike many commuters who had to contend with the cold rain and the ensuing floods in the streets.
She was so enraged that she said she tweeted her sentiments.
In her first tweet, she related that she was stuck in traffic “with no cop on sight, HPG or otherwise, no MMDA (Metropolitan Manila Development Authority).”
“Police enforcers’ presence is so important especially during downpours like this,” Legarda said.
To reporters, she said she may have been mistaken about her statement on the absence of traffic enforcers but that night she did not see any of them on the streets where she was stuck in traffic.
“I pitied the people who were tired, could not get a ride, and were stranded in the dark and in the rain,” Legarda said.
In one of her tweets, she observed commuters were “at the middle of the road because the roads were flooded on the sides.”
Legarda also said in her tweet: “Free buses for stranded commuters could be made available during those times.”
And this was the idea that she proposed on Wednesday—that authorities provide free buses for commuters whenever heavy rains and thunderstorms are advised by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration.
As chair of the Senate finance committee, which is in the thick of hearings on departments’ proposed budgets for 2016, Legarda said she would push for funding of these free buses for stranded commuters.
“There should be free rides—buses or mini-vans that are predeployed or prepositioned—ready to ease the burden of the public commuter,” she told reporters.
The senator said the funds could be provided by the Department of Public Works and Highways, and even the Department of the Interior and Local Governments, particularly for the HPG program.
Legarda also said she knew that there was a P6.5-billion fund available in the Department of Transportation and Communications that could be used here.
“Our governance should be sensitive to the people’s needs,” she added.—Christine O. Avendaño