Filtered By: Topstories
News

Manila to deploy 189 e-trikes for COVID-19 frontliners


The Manila City Government on Thursday has hired 189 electric tricycle drivers to ferry its healthcare workers amid the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine.

According to Manila mayor Isko Moreno, the e-trike program, which is in partnership with the Department of Labor and Employment, will service doctors, nurses and other health aids to public hospitals in Manila.

The e-trikes will be assigned to various city district hospitals such as Gat Andres, Ospital ng Tondo, Justice Jose Abad Santos General Hospital, Ospital ng Sampaloc, Ospital ng Maynila and Sta. Ana Hospital.

The e-trike drivers will have salaries.

“189 e-trikes will be deployed for frontliners in Manila, may trabaho at may sweldo!” Moreno said on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Moreno clarified that as per the Manila Public Information Office, the e-trike drivers will not operate for public use. They will only service medical workers from the hospitals.

Mass and public transportation has been suspended since Tuesday in connection with the enhanced community quarantine over Luzon that the Philippine government declared on Monday.

Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto earlier appealed to the national government to exempt tricycles from the ban on public transport to help ferry healthcare workers and other frontliners.

READ: Palace rebuffs Vico Sotto: How can there be social distancing in tricycles?

The Philippines has so far recorded 202 cases of COVID-19, including 17 deaths.

President Rodrigo Duterte has already placed the entire Philippines under state of calamity, allowing the government to tap more funds to contain the spread of the virus. --Ma. Angelica Garcia/MGP, GMA News

LOADING CONTENT