Boarding passes, instead of tickets, during peak hours at Cebu South Bus Terminal

Commuters bound for south of Cebu for the All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day line up at the ticketing station of the Cebu South Bus Terminal on October 31, 2019. CDN Digital file photo — Raul Tabanao

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Bus operators in the Cebu South Bus Terminal (CSBT) will issue boarding passes, instead of tickets, to passengers during peak seasons like weekends and holidays.

The boarding passes would allow passengers to enter the waiting lounge in the terminal.

The new policy will be implemented when the need arises after Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia approved the proposal during a meeting with representatives of bus lines and the management of CSBT at the governor’s office.

The new policy will replace the CSBT’s “no ticket no entry policy.”

Since October 29, the Capitol-run CSBT has imposed a “no ticket no entry policy” in order to tighten the security and manage the people entering the terminal.

But the new policy drew complaints from the passengers because they now need to fall in long queues to get tickets from the makeshift ticketing booths at the entrance of the terminal, especially during the weekend when several passengers head home.

On Monday, November 18, representatives of bus lines sought an audience with Governor Gwendolyn Garcia to propose that instead of tickets, they would just issue boarding passes in order to expedite the flow of people getting inside the terminal.

Read more:  ‘No ticket, no entry’ in Cebu’s south bus terminal

The bus lines representatives said issuing passes will be faster since they would not need to get the payment and give the change to the passengers before letting them inside the terminal.

Representatives of bus lines operating at the Cebu South Bus Terminal wait for their turn to meet with Governor Gwendolyn Garcia where they proposed a “No Boarding Pass, No Entry” policy to be implemented during peak travel hours. | Rosalie O. Abatayo #CDNDigital

“Ang taga Ceres niingon nga mao ni ilang proposal: kung daghan kaayog tawo, tagaan na lang og boarding pass usa, pasudlon na lang gyud usa unya adto sa sulod issuehan og ticket. This is, I think, a very logical way of addressing the problem,” Garcia said.

However, Garcia took a pass again at the CSBT management’s inability to implement the scheme last November 15 and 17 where there were a lot of passengers, who came to the terminal.

“So I said, nganong wa man ni giimplement atong daghan kaayong mga tawo? Naghuwat sa akong approval. Kung mao na, mag-ilis tag trabaho. I would have thought inyo na na kay kamo man ang nag-manage sa terminal,” Garcia said referring to CSBT Manager Carmen Quijano and Provincial Treasurer Roy Salubre.

(I asked them why didn’t they implement that when there were a lot of passengers. They were waiting for my approval. If so, it may be better if we switch jobs. I thought that is already your part being the terminal managers.)

Quijano and Salubre were also present during the bus line representative’s meeting with Garcia.

Garcia said that the terminal manager should have already installed measures to expedite the flow of passengers during peak hours especially that the no ticket, no entry policy had been imposed over two weeks yet.

Garcia said the passengers had the right to complain because of the inconvenience that the terminal management was “unable” to resolve./dbs