{"id":270843,"date":"2020-10-05T08:40:03","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T12:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=270843"},"modified":"2020-10-05T08:40:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T12:40:03","slug":"ridership-to-eventually-reach-70-malacanang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/10\/05\/ridership-to-eventually-reach-70-malacanang\/","title":{"rendered":"Ridership to eventually reach 70%: Malaca\u00f1ang"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque made this statement after Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III appealed to the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to increase ridership capacity since limited capacity is taking a toll on workers. (PCOO file photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) is considering increasing the passenger capacity in public transport up to 70 percent, Malaca\u00f1ang said Monday.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque made this statement after Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III appealed to the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to increase ridership capacity since limited capacity is taking a toll on workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u00a0pinag-iisipan po talaga iyan ng<\/em>\u00a0IATF\u00a0dahil alam natin na ang tanging paraan para maiahon sa kahirapan ay ang pagbubukas ng ekonomiya<\/em>\u00a0(Well, the IATF is really considering it because we know that the only way to lift people out of poverty is if we open the economy),\u201d he said in a press briefing in Boracay.<\/p>\n

He said with the continued decrease in coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases, it won\u2019t be long before passenger capacity in public transport is raised.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt sa tingin ko po<\/em>\u00a0it\u2019s a matter of time\u00a0\u2018no bago natin maibalik sa<\/em>\u00a070 percent\u00a0itong<\/em>\u00a0transportation\u00a0natin<\/em>\u00a0(I think, it\u2019s a matter of time before ridership capacity in public transport returns to 70 percent),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Roque said former health secretaries Manuel Dayrit and Esperanza Cabral said that increasing ridership capacity should not be a problem as long as commuters comply with quarantine protocols.<\/p>\n

\u201cAng sabi naman po ng mga<\/em>\u00a0doctor\u00a0na pinangungunahan ng ating mga<\/em>\u00a0Department of Health Secretaries — Dr. Dayrit at Dr. Cabral —\u00a0basta naman po magsusuot ng<\/em>\u00a0face mask, face shield,\u00a0walang usapan, walang kainan, may<\/em>\u00a0ventilation\u00a0at sina<\/em>-sanitize\u00a0ang mga<\/em>\u00a0public transportation\u00a0ay wala naman pong karagdagan na aberya<\/em>\u00a0(According to doctors, led by former Department of Health Secretaries Dr. Dayrit and Dr. Cabral, as long as you wear face masks, face shields, refrain from speaking, refrain from eating, have ventilation, and are regularly sanitized, there won\u2019t be additional problems in public transportation),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He earlier said the two former health chiefs were supportive of the national government\u2019s move to reduce physical distancing on public transportation.<\/p>\n

However, President Rodrigo Duterte decided to retain the “one-meter” physical distancing policy following clamors from various sectors that decreased physical distancing in public transport may result in further Covid-19 transmission.<\/p>\n

In a radio interview, Bello said many employees wanted to report for work but there were no rides available.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmployees would like to report to work but there are no rides available. We are also requesting to allow more people inside public transportation, an increase in ridership of (up to) 70 percent,\u201d Bello said.<\/p>\n

Currently, ridership capacity is at 50 percent or half of the designated capacity.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) is considering increasing the passenger capacity in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":267341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270844,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270843\/revisions\/270844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}