Officials in Metro Cebu cities and the Capitol yesterday assured the public that at they are ready to cope with today’s transport strike.
“(Today) is a regular working day,” said acting Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella after meeting with official to map out contingency measures.
Private school represenatatives said they would field their buses to service their students.
Gov. Hilario Davide III said “it will be business as usual at the Capitol”. He left provincial administrator Mark Tolentino in charge. Davide is flying to Manila today to attend a board meeting of the Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority.
Tolentino said he has placed several Capitol-owned vehicles on standby to ferry stranded passegers if the need arises. Two buses will transport employees to and from the Capitol to main bus terminals.
By 5:30 a.m., 24 Kaohsiung city buses will be fielded in 10 major routes.
The buses will ply the following routes: Bulacao-SM-Colon, Labangon-SM-Colon, Guadalupe-Plaza-Cathedral, Guadalupe-SM-Colon, Lahug-Colon, Talamban-Colon-City Hall, Panagdait-Colon, JY-Ayala-SM, Mabolo-Colon and Banawa-Colon.
The city’s 40 barangay mini buses will also be ready for service in secondary routes.
Schools whose representative attended the meeting said their own buses would pick up their students in the University of San Carlos, University of San Jose-Recoletos, Cebu Institute of Technology-University, and University of Cebu.
Piston was invited to attend the 2 p.m. meeting at City Hall. No one came.
Other transport groups, the National Confederation of Transportworkers Union (NTCU) and the Cebu Integrated Transport Service Cooperatives (Citrasco) said they won’t join the protest today.
“We won’t join the strike because we can see it’s not justified. We have our own ways of questioning the JAO (joint administrative order). We will just wait for the results,” said Citrasco general manager Ryan Benjamin Yu. Citrasco has over 1,000 member drivers in Cebu City.
In Mandaue City, at least 10 government vehicles will service vacant routes if the need arises, to destinations in SM City Cebu, Ayala Center and Foodland Banilad.
Those going to Lapu-Lapu City will be brought up to the “pocherohan” at the corner of A.C. Cortes and Plaridel.
Those going to the north will be ferried up to SM Consolacion.
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