Thousands stranded in Manila as Iglesia ni Cristo leases buses for rally

MANILA, Philippines—The gathering of members of the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) sect at Manila’s Rizal Park on Tuesday stranded thousands of passengers, among them college students, in southern Metro Manila and adjacent provinces.

Irate passengers in Alabang in Muntinlupa City slammed bus operators, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board  and the Metro Manila Development Authority for failure to warn the public about the shortage of buses as the religious sect leased many of them to transport its faithful to the rally.

“The LTFRB and the MMDA should have informed the public that there was a possibility of lack of public transport vehicles because of the (INC) event,” lamented Virgilio Paredes, a bank employee from San Pedro, Laguna.

“The MMDA and the police should have also provided free rides to stranded passengers just like what they usually do during transport strikes,” Paredes added.

Patricia Angel Paterno, a sophomore engineering student at the Adamson University, said she missed her exam and at least two classes because she waited for two hours before she was able to board a bus going to Taft Avenue, Manila.

“If I had known that this was going to happen, I should have left our house earlier,” Paterno, a resident of Biñan, Laguna, told the Inquirer.

A dispatcher of the Dimple Star Bus Lines, who identified himself only as Boy, said almost all the air-conditioned buses plying the Alabang-Lawton route had been rented by the INC.

“We were told that the INC rented hundreds of buses and vans for their event,” the man said, adding that some buses were sent to fetch INC members to as far as Calapan City in Oriental Mindoro.