Commuter group welcomes Bautista, challenges new DOTr to clean up Tugade mess

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Commuters, who are heading to their workplaces, line up at the Nepa Q-Mart station of the EDSA Bus Carousel in Quezon City early Tuesday morning, June 21, 2022, to beat the influx of passengers. The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority estimated last week that there will be a possible increase in passenger volume as fewer private cars may ply EDSA due to the continuing hike in oil prices.

The STAR / Miguel de Guzman

 

MANILA, Philippines (Updated 12:04 p.m.) — A transport advocacy network welcomed the appointment of former Philippine Airlines president Jaime Bautista to the Department of Transportation but urged him to “clean up the mess" it said was made by incumbent transportation chief Arthur Tugade.

 

Bautista, whose appointment was announced by president-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s camp Thursday, is inheriting a transport situation that commuters and transport workers say is in crisis, with insufficient transport capacity only worsened by skyrocketing gas prices. 

 

In a statement, commuter group The Passenger Forum said that among the missteps of the DOTR are the haphazard and unjust implementation of the jeepney modernization program, their unresponsiveness to the gradual breakdown of the public transport system since the COVID-19 pandemic, the delay in the opening of the MRT-7, and the failure to rehabilitate the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

 

Full Story: https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2022/06/24/2190618/commuter-group-welcomes-bautista-challenges-new-dotr-clean-tugade-mess

 

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