DOTR suspends distance easing in PUVS amid Covid risk debate
THE Department of Transportation (DOTR) on Thursday suspended the implementation of its controversial policy relaxing the physical distancing measure in public utility vehicles (PUVS).
In an online press briefing, Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade made the decision in order to give President Duterte enough time to review the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) recommendation on the matter.
“He [Tugade] said he doesn’t want to pressure the President into making his decision, as if he is duty bound to make it within a period of time,” Roque said.
He said the President may finally announce his decision during his public address next Monday.
New recommendation
THE policy to reduce physical distancing for passengers inside PUVS from 1 meter to 0.75 meter was approved by the IATF last week, but it decided to review it after getting considerable public opposition.
Roque said the IATF was able to submit its new recommendation
to Duterte on Thursday after several days of consultations and deliberations.
One group, which includes the DOTR, is pushing to reduce the physical distancing, so PUVS could carry more passengers and quicken the resumption of more businesses.
The other faction includes some health officials, who are advocating that the 1-meter rule in PUV stay. They said lowering it could lead to an increase in new novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases.
Still another expert group, which counts two former health secretaries, said the one-meter distance is ideal but that easing it a bit would not lead to a needless spike of cases as long as the other safeguards—use of face masks, face shields, and no talking during public commutes—are strictly observed.
Lead by example
HEALTH advocates as well as labor and transportation groups are against relaxing the 1-meter rule, which they noted was a recommendation from no less than the World Health Organization (WHO).
Rather than ease the said standard, National Confederation of Transport Workers Union (NCTU) chairman Ernesto Cruz said the government should just increase the available number of PUVS such as traditional jeepneys.
He noted that out of the 55,000 traditional jeepneys nationwide, only 17,000 are being allowed to operate using a service contracting scheme, wherein the government pays them so they could continue to operate.
The service contracting is necessary since the physical distancing rules significantly reduced their number of passengers per trip.
“There are still 38,000 jeepneys which are still not being allowed to operate,” Cruz said in an online press conference.
NCTU has joined the Nagkaisa labor coalition, Health Justice and Healthy Philippines Alliance, and Action for Economic Reforms and other members of the Move as One Coalition to demand for government officials to go to work by commuting.
They hope policy-makers will reconsider easing the 1-meter rule once they are exposed to the risks of commuting with minimal physical distancing.
Research-based
FORMER Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit, however, belied the belief that reducing social distancing in PUVS will immediately lead to higher Covid-19 cases.
“WHO makes certain norms and standards. And you remember, they’re trying to do this for all countries. But when they do these norms and standards, it is not a dogma; that is not gospel truth,” Dayrit said in an online briefing.
“In fact, WHO asked the countries to deal with this according to their own context. And therefore, it is not correct to say it cannot be reduced [1-meter rule],” he added.
Dayrit admitted that reduced physical distancing will pose a higher risk for passengers of getting infected, but only, he stressed, if they will not comply with other minimum health standards.
Citing the results of two international studies, he noted the said risk could be countered if commuters will wear face masks and face shields as well as not speak and eat in well-ventilated public transportation.