A leader of the House of Representatives on Saturday asked Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade to deploy public transportation marshals who would be tasked to enforce health and safety protocols on buses and jeepneys.
Rep. Edgar Mary Sarmiento, chairman of the House committee on transportation, suggested this as he observed that numerous buses and jeepneys go beyond the maximum capacity set by the Inter-Agency Task Force on COVID-19 (IATF).
Sarmiento said he has also not seen temperature checks being conducted before boarding PUVs. They also do not have any contact tracing form or QR Code reader/recorders, which is also required under the IATF guidelines for public transportation, he added.
“I am appealing to drivers and operators to consistently follow the minimum health protocols. Commuters who are asymptomatic COVID carriers are potential super-spreaders and until we are able to reach our vaccination goals, we cannot let our guard down,” Sarmiento said.
Contact tracing on public transports has also become close to impossible because there is no reliable contact tracing system for land transportation, added Sarmiento.
“I understand the situation of our drivers and commuters. It is really time-consuming and very cumbersome for us to comply with the guidelines set by the IATF. But these protocols were set to stop the spread of this deadly virus. These are extraordinary times that require extraordinary measures,” Sarmiento said.
“By not complying with our health and safety protocols, we will only keep running in circles. Paulit-ulit lang tayo na GCQ tapos ECQ ulit. We must end this cycle so that we can be on our way to normalcy. We need consistency as we open our economy once again,” Sarmiento said.
Apart from ensuring the safety of commuters, Sarmiento said that deploying public transport marshals would also provide employment to a lot of people who have lost their livelihood because of the pandemic.
He said those who lost their jobs especially in the transportation sector due to the pandemic can be tapped by the DoTr to take the role as marshals upon completion of a crash course on how they could properly check body temperatures and use QR Code Readers.
In a related development, Quezon City Rep. Precious Hipolito Castelo urged telecommunications companies (telcos) to provide free wi-fi and internet service to Covid-19 patients in isolation facilities throughout the country.
“The provision of such service will encourage those asymptomatic and with mild and moderate illness to isolate themselves in these facilities. That will lessen virus transmission, since many recently reported small clusters were households where an infected member isolating at home spread the virus,” she said.
That in turn will free up space in hospitals for patients with severe and critical Covid-19, and ease congestion in the healthcare system and pressure on the already tired medical personnel, she said.
“The pandemic response task force and local government units should continue to seek out and encourage patients who show no symptoms or are classified as mild and moderate cases to go to isolation patients so they would not infect their families and other persons,” Castelo, an assistant majority leader, said.
She added that one way of encouragement is to provide isolation facilities with free internet service.
“That will allow them to get in touch with their families and lessen their sense of being alone in a distant area far from home,” she stressed.
