"Authorities may wish to review and reassess some of their rules that seem to defeat the very purpose of protecting the public from COVID-19 contagion."
"Authorities may wish to review and reassess some of their rules that seem to defeat the very purpose of protecting the public from COVID-19 contagion."
President Duterte appeared tickled by Transport Secretary Arthur Tugade’s report in last week’s televised meeting with the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) COVID-19 in preparation for Metro Manila’s shift to General Community Quarantine (GCQ).
It sounded as if it were all systems go in the National Capital Region (NCR) and in other regions going under GCQ, such as CALABARZON and Central Luzon.
Tugade even touted the DOTr and Department of Health’s (DOH) plan to set up swab test kiosks at key airports like Clark International Airport and Mactan-Cebu International Airport so arriving passengers can be rapidly tested.
But, contrary to what the Department of Transportation (DOTr) chief made us expect, chaos prevailed as hundreds of thousands people of got out of their homes, hoping to return to work or salvage livelihood devastated by the two and a half months of lockdown.
Practically no means of mass transportation was available to the majority of workers who did not have their own cars, as public utility vehicles (PUVs) could hardly be seen. Barely 30 percent of MRT-3’s capacity were made available to ensure social or physical distancing.
There were barely enough public utility buses (PUBs) in EDSA, Commonwealth Ave. and Taft Ave.
To aggravate matters, public utility jeepneys (PUJs) were prohibited from plying their routes despite operators and drivers’ efforts to improvise with plastic partitions to physically isolate jeepney passengers from each other.
Four jeepney drivers, including a 74-year old demonstrated in Monumento, Caloocan City to demand being allowed to run their route and earn some money for food. Instead they were arrested and hauled to jail by the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Senior citizens (age 60 and over) are no longer allowed to drive PUJs, according to the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) in line with IATF Quarantine rules.
Why, I believe those lolos are old enough to observe personal preventive health measures! They'll die of hunger if not allowed to drive jeepneys!
Some 200,000 public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers, including 70,000 jeepney drivers, have not received any of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) cash from the first tranche promised them by the government.
As a result of this whole fiasco, hundreds of thousands of commuters were stranded and failed to get back to work. Many resorted to walking or riding bicycles to their jobsites. Under the sun, a number of elderly people collapsed on the road.
There were a few who availed of free rides provided by the PNP and the local government units (LGUs) but social distancing could not be observed in this situation.
I would not want to accuse Sec. Tugade of purveying fake news when he expected that things would go smoothly this week. But clearly, they had no realistic and effective mass transport plan to meet metro commuters’ demands.
The commuters’ agony that continued towards this weekend is not at all a promising sign as far as reopening the economy is concerned, far from any sensible step towards recovery from pandemic bankruptcy.
Just maybe, the DOTr and the IATF would wish to review and reassess some of the rules that seem to defeat the very purpose of protecting the public from COVID-19 contagion.
Some rules and prohibitions are actually hurting the people instead of protecting them from COVID-19 and hunger.
