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MANILA, Philippines – The government is exploring the possibility of allowing buses and trains to operate in Metro Manila in limited capacity despite the extended enhanced community quarantine that is implemented in response to the coronavirus crisis.
According to Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases began discussing the proposal on Monday when Acting Secretary for Socioeconomic Planning Karl Kendrick Chua presented studies on allowing partial operation of public transportation.
Tugade said that if Metro Manila’s buses and train systems are allowed to reopen, they will not be made to operate at full capacity, so that physical distancing can still be followed to prevent transmission of the coronavirus disease.
“Kung papayagan po ng IATF partial operability magpa tayo but ‘yung operational capacity will be shortened to keep ma’ yung patakaran ng Department of Health in social distancing,” Tugade said in a virtual public session Laging Handa broadcast by state PTV.
(If the IATF will allow partial operability of public transportation, the operational capacity will be shortened to maintain the anti-COVID-19 protocols applied by the Department of Health.)
In mid-March, President Duterte placed all of Luzon, home to more than 50 million people, under an improved community quarantine of one month. This occurs only days after an attempt to restrict the movement of people living and working in Metro Manila to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Luzon’s closure was supposed to end on April 13, but Duterte approved the proposal to extend it until April 30.
The blockade halted all public transportation, banned mass gatherings and strictly quarantined homes, as work was suspended for most residents of the region. People are only allowed to go out to buy food and other basic necessities and in emergencies.
But the Philippine Management Association (MAP) asked the government to allow the necessary modes of public transportation to operate for the time being to support the daily commute of at least 250,000 workers, which the group calculated as the necessary workforce for the hand of Skeletal work of essential businesses in Metro Manila, the economic and political center of the country.
The number should increase over time as the government flattens the COVID-19 curve, the business group said.
Duterte is determined to decide Thursday whether to lift, expand or loosen the blockade.
/ MUF
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