Carcar, Oslob, Dumanjug to deploy buses for stranded passengers during Holy Week rush

Passengers at the Cebu South Bus Terminal heading to the south of Cebu get ready to board buses that will take them to their destinations. |Photo courtesy of Jonathan Tumulak

CEBU CITY, Philippines— Passengers, who will find themselves stranded during the Holy Week rush, may find relief as three local government units (LGUs) in the south committed to deploy bus units  on Holy Wednesday when the peak of the volume of travellers are expected.

Cebu South Bus Terminal (CSBT) Operations Manager Jonathan Tumulak said that as of Sunday, April 14, the municipalities of Dumanjug and Oslob as well as the city of Carcar had signified that they would deploy bus units to ferry their constituents from the terminal to their respective towns on Wednesday, April 17.

Read more: CSBT management eyes use of LGU buses to help ferry Holy Week travellers

The LGU-owned buses, Tumulak said, would only accommodate passengers bound to their respective towns.

“Wala pa ta kahibaw unsay system nila sa pagdetermine ana [if the passenger is from their town] but usa ana kay point to point man ni so ang tagilungsod ra gyud ang makasakay kay dili man ni pwede mohunong ug mopakanaog sa pasahero along the way,” said Tumulak.

(We don’t know yet their system to determine that (if the passenger is from their town) but one option would be to employ a point to point system where the buses would only stop from one point to another and no one would be allowed to disembark along the way to a certain point.)

Read more: CSBT management to Holy Week commuters: Travel light

Aside from the LGU-owned buses, Tumulak said they had also requested for two Suroy-Suroy Sugbo buses to ferry stranded passengers up to Carcar City.

Pregnant women, those who would be bringing children, persons with disability and senior citizens would be the priority passengers for the LGU-owned and Suroy-Suroy Sugbo buses, Tumulak said.

Unlike the LGU-owned buses, which would only be deployed on Wednesday, Tumulak said the province-owned buses would be on standby starting tomorrow, Monday (April 15), and would be ready to ferry passengers if there would be no more buses inside the terminal.

Tumulak earlier said that they sought the opinion of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) if it would be proper to deploy LGU buses for the passengers despite the campaign season.

“Nitubag na man ang Comelec sa province, si Atty. Jerome Brillantes, ug ang iya ganing giingon nga okay ra kay dili man dapat mahunong ang delivery of basic services tungod sa campaign period,” Tumulak said.

(The Provincial Comelec Office, through Atty. Jerome Brillantes, has responded to our letter, and he said that it is fine because the delivery of basic services should not be stopped just because of the campaign period.)

But Tumulak assured that they would help the Comelec in policing the buses to make sure that the free rides would not be translated into political stunts of incumbent politicians./dbs