Photos and videos of long lines for buses and trains circulated on social media this week.
Commuters shared footage of a congested Metro Rail Transit (MRT)station and long queues for buses in some stations.
One of them named Romeo Ben on Twitter shared a video that showed how congested the footbridge at the MRT Ortigas station is with people on Wednesday morning, June 1.
The user said that an escalator went out of order that time, thus some people had to use the already-crowded stairs to move across the footbridge.
“At the Ortigas Station footbridge this morning on my way to work. Escalator was out of order and closed so foot traffic was diverted to what were already not enough stairs. It also started to rain a bit too, which would’ve made this quite the sh**show,” one user said.
At the Ortigas Station footbridge this morning on my way to work. Escalator was out of order and closed so foot traffic was diverted to what were already not enough stairs. It also started to rain a bit too, which would’ve made this quite the shitshow pic.twitter.com/Mo2yByQRGP
— Romeo Ben (@_romeoben) June 1, 2022
Another user who also shared a photo of the same situation called for a magna carta for commuters in the near future.
“F*** the transpo system. Magna Carta for Commuters and Pedestrian naman,” the user said.
On May 30, one Facebook user shared photos of areas at the Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange (PITX) that were thick with long lines of passengers waiting for their rides.
“Kahit anong aga ng pasok mo mapa 4:30 or 4 a.m. ka man bumyahe. Basta sa PITX ka dadaan. GG ka na sa 1st day of the week mo,” the user said.
The PITX, touted as the country’s first land port, has been experiencing complaints from passengers going through the terminals since it opened in 2018.
READ: Why Parañaque Integrated Terminal is flooded with commuters
It serves as a large hub for buses, jeepneys and other public utility vehicles for commuters in Metro Manila and the nearby provinces of Cavite, Batangas and the Bicol region.
Other commuters also complained about long lines of passengers in some EDSA Carousel bus stations.
“I do hope people try taking the EDSA Carousel before they it’s good or bad. I only took the EDSA Carousel once and I thought I was gonna faint with the hellish routes to get in and leave the terminals,” statistician Peter Cayton said.
Political scientist Cleve Arguelles even shared a video of how long the queue is at one of the bus stations he passed by.
How continued urban misgovernance looks like daily. 😣 pic.twitter.com/EvFUwfGIBY
— Cleve V. Arguelles (@CleveArguelles) May 29, 2022
The Department of Transportation’s MRT-3 has been giving free rides to passengers since March 28.
The agency issued an update on Wednesday that their “Libreng Sakay” program had since served over 18 million commuters.
MRT-3 rides will continue to be free of charge until the end of June.
The EDSA Carousel Bus System, on the other hand, covers only specific bus routes and lanes along EDSA.
This initiative was initially launched in June 2020 to help ferry front-line workers amid the still limited public transportation options at that time.
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