Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 9) — The government is planning to open all 31 “rationalized” city bus routes in Metro Manila by June 19, a few days before all public buses are expected to return to the road, a transport official said Tuesday.
Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board Chairman Martin Delgra said so far 15 routes have been made available and they will continue to open the remaining routes in the coming days, including two or three more on Wednesday.
“We’re even meeting a target earlier than the start of phase 2 because we’re looking forward to opening all the 31 rationalized city bus routes by June 19,” said Delgra during a “Laging Handa” online briefing with government officials.
Phase 2 starts on June 22 and marks when public utility buses, modern public utility vehicles and UV Express will be allowed to operate with limited passenger capacity.
On the other hand, phase 1 which began on June 1 gave way to trains, bus augmentation, taxis, transport network vehicle service, point-to-point buses and bicycles. Tricycles were also permitted but upon approval of the local government.
Delgra said they already began opening bus routes since June 2, a day after Metro Manila was placed under general community quarantine, after seeing the public’s need for them.
“[Binuksan] na namin ‘yung additional bus routes kasi nakikita natin ‘yung pangangailangan,” added Delgra.
[Translation: We opened additional bus routes because we saw the need for them.]
They first opened the bus routes near the train stations and the routes for P2P buses, he said.
