Mayor Isko Moreno deployed 189 electric tricycles to transport its healthcare workers amid the transportation ban due to enhanced community quarantine.
Moreno said that the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) partnered with the Manila City Government to launch the e-trike program that will only serve doctors and nurses.
The e-trikes will be placed in different cities district hospitals such as Gat Andres, Ospital ng Tondo, Justice Jose Abad Santos General Hospital, Ospital ng Sampaloc, Ospital ng Maynila, and Sta. Ana Hospital.
They’re also going to give a salary to the drivers.
“189 e-trikes will be deployed for frontliners in Manila, may trabaho at may sweldo!” Moreno posted on Twitter.
According to the Mayor, they’re not going to allow the e-trike drivers to serve other people aside from the medical workers.
Yesterday, Moreno also announced that they’re going to deploy buses to transport their health workers to their hospitals.
Meanwhile, some questioned Isko Moreno’s trike program to the rejected request of Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto to allow tricycles to operate in his city.
“I wonder what the difference is between Mayor Isko’s e trike and Mayor Vico’s regular trike? Will his drivers be outfitted in hazmat?” Krizette Laureta Chu said.
Some of her followers said that the e-trikes deployed by Moreno are bigger and its possible to practice social distancing in the said vehicle.
“Compliant for social distancing sanitary segregation, with covers clearly shown in the photos. Open-air vehicles are a risk for environmentally-present infection,” netizen Pere Sitos said.
“If this etrike can accommodate 6 passengers on a daily basis, then it can accommodate 3 to 4 person during this time of quarantine, unlike the regular trike na can cary 2 passengers on a regular basis (sidecar) and during this time it can only cary 1. Imagine kung ang kailangan na pumasok na health worker ay 10 persons tapos 1 per trike, then 10 trike ang nasa kalsada and what if they needed more? Eh di hind na observed ang purpose ng community quarantine which is to minimize the movements of people and cars/transportation outside,” netizen Craig Igar commented.
To give comfort to the health workers, Moreno also ordered hotels in Manila City to reserve rooms for the doctors or nurses who wanted to sleep near their hospitals.
Mass public transportation in the whole Luzon has been suspended since Tuesday as a way of the government to control the movement of the people and prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the country.