Light Rail Transit-2 operations will start at 5 a.m. tomorrow instead of 6 a.m., LRT Management said Saturday, coinciding with a lawmaker’s proposal that all ranking civil servants take public transport every Monday following presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo’s “commute challenge.”
Panelo on Friday took public transportation, as he previously promised, to work, traveling 3.5 hours to arrive 46 minutes late at Malacanang.
READ: Panelo hops on Angkas in last leg of commute
But he said he was not insensitive when he said Filipinos should leave home early to arrive at their destinations on time – a comment criticized by commuters who said Panelo should take the public transport every day to see that there was a transport crisis, a situation he had denied existed in Metro Manila.
READ: What transport crisis? All I see is traffic—Panelo
After the October 3 fire that paralyzed the line’s operations for days, LTR-2 resumed its trips but partially – servicing the Cubao-Recto-Cubao portions only.
READ: Mass transport crisis? 3 railways reset by woes
On October 8 the partial operation began at 6 a.m. Two days after, the LRTA management announced the new schedule of free rides for students in light of its new operating hours following the fire.
In a statement, the LRTA said the free rides for students will be available only from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. from Monday to Friday. The original schedule was 4:30 a.m. to 6 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Iligan City Rep. Frederick Siao plans to file a House measure titled “Public Servants’ Commuting via Public Transport Act.”
Siao, chairman of the House Committee on Civil Service and Professional Regulation, said this would remind officials “of the suffering the masses endure on a consistent basis.”
“[E]very Monday, all government vehicles used to fetch and bring home public officials from the division chiefs to cabinet secretaries to elected public officials would be grounded at their respective motor pools,” Siao said.
Earlier in the week, an LRTA official admitted the agency did not have a disaster recovery plan to deal with events such as the fire that forced the shutdown of three LRT-2 stations on Oct. 3.
“Sorry, sir, I don’t think we have one,” said Federico Canar, manager of the LRT Lines 1 and 2 Engineering Department, after Muntinlupa City Rep. Rozzano Rufino Biazon asked if there was a playbook to deal with such disasters.
Canar’s testimony was part of a hearing into the partial suspension of the LRT2 conducted by the committee on transportation led by Samar Rep. Edgar Mary Sarmiento.
Reacting to Canar’s admission, Biazon said this was “a glaring gap” for critical infrastructure, since any breakdown, manmade or natural, would cause “a lot of havoc.”
Hernando Cabrera, corporate board secretary of LRTA, said the agency’s board would check if this is included in the company’s risk management plan.
LRT-2 suspended its operations from Oct. 3 to 7 after a fire caught one of its power transformers, forcing 200,000 daily passengers to find alternative modes of transport.
The LRT-2 normally accommodates passengers through its 11 stations running from Santolan in Pasig to Recto in Manila.
Anonas, Katipunan and Santolan stations will also be closed for at least nine months for repairs.
Last week, the LRT-1 also halted trips due to mechanical issues, the same day that an MRT-3 train stalled between Magallanes and Ayala stations, forcing scores of passengers to walk along the rail tracks.
READ: LRT lacks failsafe system, exec says