Makati grants each tricycle driver P2,000 for 1st two weeks of community quarantine

The Makati City government will grant P2,000 in cash assistance to 5,952 duly registered tricycle drivers in the city as public mass transport has been banned in Luzon to prevent the transmission of the coronavirus disease or COVID-19.

In a statement, Makati Mayor Abby Binay said that this initial amount is meant to aid the drivers and their families during the first two weeks of the enhanced community quarantine period.

"We empathize with the plight of our tricycle drivers who are now unable to earn for the daily subsistence of their own families due to the suspension of public transport operations nationwide,” Binay said in a statement.

“The tricycle drivers will be informed of the mechanics of distribution shortly,” she added.

In addition, Binay said that a separate financial assistance for jeepney drivers will also be distributed by the city government.

Binay also said that the city government has put measures in place to ensure assistance to the residents hardest hit by the enhanced community quarantine.

“I continue to urge everyone to stay at home. Please cooperate and allow us to do our job so we can all see an end to this crisis,” she added.

Binay earlier said in an interview over Dobol B sa GMA News TV that banning mass transport has created more problems; that it has affected health workers and employees of essential sector like banks and groceries but also those will those non-emergency medical cases such as patients undergoing dialysis or chemotherapy, and outpatients.

Binay also said that shouldering the cost of paying employees of private companies that implement the no work, no pay policy, as well as jeepney and tricycle drivers who will have no income during the one-month quarantine period cannot be put on the shoulders of the local governments alone because doing so will dry up LGUs’ resources for other urgent needs. — Llanesca T. Panti/BM, GMA News