Having your own car has been such a necessity nowadays for you to go wherever you want or anytime you want either on a special trip or also in case of emergency. And if you don't have any kinds of vehicle or cars that you can use there is an alternative way of it, and that is to commute on public transportation through public vehicles you can ride such like here in the Philippines are tricycle, public utility jeepneys, public utility buses, taxi's, and some private grab cars and also some trains such like MRT and LRT.
But when the pandemic strikes the whole world the transport sector have been really affected as all mode public transportation have been not allowed to operate and temporary stop operations due to higher increase of transmitting the virus. So lots of people who especially are working and only relying on the service of public transportation been really affected due to that implementation by the government which led some people to buy a bicycle of their own and make a habit of bike to work from their workplace and some are much worse way like sacrificing to walk for 1 hour to 3 hours or more just to get to work. And also who have those motorcycle which at one point the government not allowing a back ride and if they want a back ride only allowed is your wife and must have a protector barrier which for me is really no brainer idea.
And then on June 1 the government has put Metro Manila places in the General Community Quarantine which is a more lightly rules and regulations of this new normal and one of those rules are the opening of the economy and to open the public transportation. At for the tricycle operations they made a new rules such as allowing only 1 passenger every trip which was very different before the pre pandemic operations of the tricycle which the normal passengers are up to 4 persons maximum. While in both buses and public jeepney's and also train transportation have also opened but limit the passenger capacity to only 50 percent of the vehicles. And prior to this opening up of the transportation the government held by the Department of Health mandatory ordered that all who are using or avail the public transportation must wear a face mask along with a face shield and social distancing with 1 meter apart from each every person as a passenger.
And i would like to share my personal experience about this matter which i can say the transportation especially on commuting is really a big struggle here in the Philippines. Yesterday i go to Manila in our agency office there to report about my working update back on board, Since i don't have an vehicle or motorcycle i was just commuting to get on where i want to go so i leave our home early at around 8 in the morning and ride first a tricycle and at 8:10am I was already catching a bus to ride to go to our office but unfortunately it was very hard to ride a bus because lot's of commuters like me are awaiting for a bus to ride and second almost all the most passing are already fully occupied since they are not allowed to have a full capacity on their buses which is make very hard for us commuters for almost one hour of waiting around 9:05 i finally rode a bus. I feel so stressed on that scenario that i almost give up on whether i can ride a bus this situation now is very concerning especially to all commuters like me. I know it is very hard for the government to resolve this issue because of the pandemic they cannot bring back the normal operations of transportation and maybe if they do that a lot of people will get infected of the virus as this enemy is invisible and we cannot see who have this. As what we can do now is to be careful always on what we are doing and always be alert and to follow the health protocols by our government. Let's all be keep safe and just sacrifice for now as everything will be comeback to normal as this pandemic will end soon.
