MRT-3 maintenance provider Sumitomo to relieve hasty cleaners

The Metro Rail Transit Line 3’s (MRT3) maintenance provider will relieve members of its cleaning staff who were seen on video “hastily cleaning the trains” amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a statement released Monday, the Department of Transportation said maintenance contractor Sumitomo Corp. would file administrative raps against the personnel.

The cleaning staff has reportedly apologized.

"We apologize for the incident regarding members of disinfection team not properly doing their job. We will relieve the staff involved within the day while we are proceeding with the admin case," Administration Manager Toto Domingo said.

"We have notified all team members to always observe proper disinfection as they were trained to do. We are also deploying two additional staff to ensure that they are properly supervised," he added.

Sumitomo will also deploy additional staff to supervise its disinfection teams and will roll out a re-training of its maintenance personnel upon the MRT3 management's bidding.

Moreover, MRT3 director for operations Michael Capati said the MRT3 was already installing additional CCTV cameras and realigning other units to ensure cleaning areas are captured on footage by the management's own security personnel.

"We assure our passengers that the MRT-3 takes the sanitation and disinfection of its trains seriously and that their health and safety are our top priorities. We are taking all the necessary steps to ensure this incident will never happen again,” Capati said.

The MRT3 said it will also deploy additional stations personnel to oversee the work of its maintenance provider in relation to ensuring proper sanitation and disinfection protocols are being followed.

The cleaning operations of the MRT3 are conducted after reaching the end stations, North Avenue and Taft Avenue. Done properly, the cleaning lasts five minutes and is based on the seven-minute miracle cleaning done in Japan's Shinkansen. -NB, GMA News