Tugade sorry for inconvenience brought by MRT-3 closure on last workday of Holy Week
MANILA, Philippines — Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade apologized to commuters for the inconvenience brought by the suspended operations of MRT-3 for its annual preventive maintenance.
The unavailability of the train line along with the insufficient number of public buses led to crowding and long lines of commuters stuck at the EDSA bus carousel Wednesday evening.
“While we were on top of the situation, we admit that the lack of available public utility vehicles (PUVs) has been a lingering problem that we strive to resolve, not just during Holy Week season,” Tugade said in a statement early Thursday.
He said the Department of Transportation will work on providing bus augmentations, issue more provisional authority permits, and get more people on the ground to assist commuters.
The department has been offering free bus and MRT-3 rides to commuters through its Service Contracting Program.
With the temporary closure of the train line, people commuting home on the last working day of Holy Week relied on public buses. Commuters were at the bus queue that started from Guadalupe MRT-3 to the Pag-IBIG branch around the corner last night.
More scenes from EDSA Guadalupe tonight. Even the Jollibee branch has stopped letting people in because of long lines of frustrated commuters giving up on the bus queue. pic.twitter.com/Lx1hkffwBo
— Franco Luna (@francoIuna) April 13, 2022
“We will make sure that what happened yesterday shall never happen again in the succeeding days,” Tugade said. — Kaycee Valmonte with reports from Franco Luna
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