THOUSANDS of commuters composed mostly of students and workers were on Monday stranded by the strike staged by the Stop & Go Transport Coalition opposing the government’s jeepney modernization plan.
Group president Jun Magno said the jeepney strike, which on Monday affected mostly Bulacan province and some parts of Metro Manila, will continue until tomorrow.
Stranded commuters were observed in Commonwealth, Litex, Monumento and Fairview in Quezon City and Santa Ana and Paco in Manila, while normal jeepney operations continued in many parts of Metro Manila.
Magno said jeepney drivers and operators would not be able to cough up P800 a day to acquire new vehicles that would be sold for P1.6 million per unit for seven years at six-percent interest.
He said not all jeepneys should be required to install GPS navigation devices and speed limiters because those were not applicable to vehicles whose routes were short.
He said the government should be blamed if there were still many dilapidated jeepneys on the streets because it continued to allow the registration of those vehicles.
Meanwhile, the government-deployed buses failed to help ease the lack of transportation because only a few of those were deployed.
In Bulacan and Mandaluyong City in Metro Manila, classes were suspended because of the transport strike.