#INeedARide: Refusing To Be Bystanders, Some People Respond To Calls For Transportation

Health workers cannot catch a ride to their hospitals and other medical facilities as President Duterte placed the entire Luzon under “enhanced community quarantine” effective yesterday, March 17, due to the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The government prohibited public utility vehicles (PUVs) – jeepneys, buses, trains, even ride-hailing companies – from operating. Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said on Monday: “If there is no public transport, then ride private (vehicles) or you’ll have to walk.”

 Neither Duterte nor Nograles mentioned how health workers were expected to go to their hospitals and help cure the sick following the suspension of mass transport services, one of the measures that is supposed to force people to stay or work from home, even those from the private sector. They called this home quarantine to contain the spread of COVID-19.

 Being frontliners, health workers are among those exempted from enhanced community quarantine. Duterte’s speech on Monday night mentioned the need to express to them our gratitude in a more tangible way when this crisis is over,” as he directed the Department of Budget and Management and Department of Health (DOH) to “find a way to best compensate” them. He also urged the public to “pray” for the health workers.

 When Nograles, for his part, spoke about the ban on public transportation, he focused on the individuals who would be allowed to go outside their homes to buy basic necessities in markets and grocery stores, as well as business process outsourcing companies that he said should provide employees with temporary accommodations or transportation.

 Government officials have identified public transportation as a possible risk for the spread of COVID-19. But the enforcement of “social distancing” measures on PUVs meant only a few could catch a ride, leaving many commuters stranded and standing in crowds and long lines on Monday, defeating the purpose.

 The effect of the omission was felt on Tuesday morning.

One nurse was forced to walk from Antipolo City (in Rizal province outside Metro Manila) to her facility in Marikina City (within Metro Manila) for 40 minutes since she could not get a jeepney or a taxicab. She was likely exhausted before her 16-hour shift from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

 Another nurse working in a Makati City clinic stayed put in his Manila dormitory, as he and his co-workers were advised that “it is OK to miss work” if they had no means of getting there.

 Amid these issues, Transportation Undersecretary Raul del Rosario maintained that companies should arrange transport services for their staff. He appeared on a government-run PTV-4 briefing titled “Laging Handa (Always Ready).”

 But Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto admitted that even if the city government was using its vehicles for free rides, “kulang na kulang ito (this is really not enough).” Citing the needs of health workers and other employees performing essential services, as well as emergency cases in hard-to-reach areas, Sotto on Tuesday allowed the limited operation of tricycles, subject to “social distancing” guidelines.

 By Tuesday afternoon, the Office of the Vice President announced that beginning Wednesday, it would “provide free shuttle services for health workers and other frontliners.”

 Makati City also offered rides to the city-run Ospital ng Makati.

 Even before noon, private individuals had begun taking up the slack, apparently prompted by a chat message saying that the state-run Philippine Heart Center lacked nurses because they could not get to work. Tagged as a contact person was GJoy Carolino (8925-2401, local 3229). Among those who spread the message was actor Jason Abalos.

 Former Bayan Muna party-list congressman Teodoro Casiño took note and said, “Can we start a (Twitter)-based pickup service for health workers? Maybe use the hashtag #pickup4COVID19PH for anyone offering to pick up and those needing pick up.” He himself volunteered to pick up health workers in the Makati City area.

 The former congressman also retweeted the post of user @_cjpaz, who said, “If anyone knows someone who needs a shuttle service for their company/hospital/grocery or whatever, please let me know! My dad and other shuttle drivers are struggling to find work, maybe we can help each other out.”

 For her part, Therese “Gang” Badoy, founder of civic organization RockEd Philippines, issued a call for volunteer drivers willing to take Philippine General Hospital workers home to Dasmariñas, Cavite; Calamba, Laguna; Antipolo City, Rizal; Meycauayan, Bulacan; Novaliches district in Quezon City, Valenzuela, Parañaque and Caloocan.

 Badoy used the hashtag #RockEdCarpool and said she would provide the protective gear. She also tagged Jossel Ebesate, officer-in-charge of the PGH Division of Nursing and Research Development, as the contact person.

 Spoken word artist Juan Miguel Severo also made a Twitter post seeking to coordinate carpooling offers for “health workers/anyone whose work isn’t suspended today,” through the use of the hashtag #INeedARide.

 “If you need a ride, please reply to this thread with #INeedARide and your route. If you’re a private citizen w/ car who’s willing to drop them off, check hashtag to see if you can accommodate someone,” Severo said, with a reminder that passengers should not be packed together.

 The artist also responded to the call of Kathlyn Valdez, who said she and fellow workers at the PGH, an arm of the University of the Philippines, needed rides to get to work and go home while shuttle services were being arrange.

 As this developed, the DOH sought the exemption of all workers in public and private healthcare facilities from the quarantine being implemented to contain the virus.

 DOH Undersecretary Ma. Rosario Vergeire said this is to ensure that manpower in healthcare facilities will not be depleted amid the threat of COVID-19.

 Vergeire said the DOH is coordinating with the Department of the Interior and Local Government for the issuance of a “blanket authority for all hospital personnel, whether they are medical or non-medical,” to be excluded from the restrictions.

 Filipino Nurses United secretary general Jocelyn Andamo lamented yesterday that nurses and other health workers have been “doubly burdened” by the suspension of operations of public utility vehicles.

Andamo said they received reports from their members who had difficulty getting rides to and from hospital facilities last Monday.

 “Many of them were not able to report for work because they could not get a ride.  They just went home because walking to their workplace is not possible given the distance,” she added.

 At the end of the day, health workers ran into the same problem as they ended their shift and headed home.

 Andamo lamented that there were nurses who had to do double shifts because their relievers were trapped at the boundaries where checkpoints had been set up.

 “Our nurses almost begged those manning the checkpoints to let them pass, but they were rebuffed. If this persists, there will be no one attending to our patients,” Andamo said.

 Andamo bewailed the difficulties that could have been prevented if the measures were well-planned and coordinated. She noted that these problems were on top of the COVID-19 infection risk that they faced as frontliners.

 There are also people like Andrew and Jairus (not their real names), students whom The Philippine STAR encountered as they asked for rides. The two urged their classmates to give a ride to relatives who needed kidney dialysis or sutures for a knife cut. Other Twitter users who pleaded that #INeedARide include a Caloocan City resident who suffered shortness of breath and a Philippine Heart Center patient who was forced to walk to Cubao in Quezon City.

 As these efforts were underway, presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo finally announced that Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana had directed the Armed Forces of the Philippines to deploy “Army trucks to ferry those who are stranded, particularly health workers and other individuals exempted from the ban, so they can be safely brought to their places of work and their homes after work.”

 Panelo also said the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority was coordinating with bus companies to provide free rides.

 The restriction on the mobility of health workers was not the only thing that people found confusing about the “enhanced community quarantine.”

 Duterte called on big businesses to “consider paying the 13th month pay or just paying them maski kalahati sa sweldo nila kung walang trabaho (even just half the pay if there is no work) as a way of showing your solidarity with the Filipino at this critical time.”

 But labor group Defend Jobs Philippines noted that “nothing clear was said on how the government will ensure that such plans will be executed.” The group urged the government to make the President’s pronouncements “clear, concrete and put in black and white as an official order that needs to be implemented in the soonest possible time.”

 Meanwhile, Ateneo de Manila University School of Government dean Ronald Mendoza criticized the Bureau of Internal Revenue for announcing that it would keep the April 15 deadline for the filing of income tax returns. This was despite the fact that community quarantine is currently scheduled to end on April 14.

 “Habang bawal magtrabaho ang marami dahil sa quarantine at maraming negosyong nanganganib – walang (extension) sa pagbayad ng buwis. Kung kailan kailangan ng tulong ang maraming Pilipino, ang sagot ng gubyerno ay hindi paluwal, kundi buwis. Mali ang prayoridad (While many are barred from working because of the quarantine and many businesses are in danger – there is no extension for the payment of taxes. Just when many Filipinos are in need of help, the government’s answer is not assistance but taxes. The priority is wrong),” Mendoza said. – With Sheila Crisostomo