MMDA to assist travelers for Undas

MANILA, Philippines - The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), on the other hand, will deploy personnel at various bus terminals and ports in the metropolis starting today to assist thousands of passengers leaving for the provinces for Undas, an official said Tuesday.  

As part of the agency’s yearly Oplan Kaluluwa, personnel of MMDA’s Sidewalk Clearing Operations Group (SCOG) will help passengers bring their baggage into the bus stations and ports with push carts.  

They will also be at the terminals and ports on Nov. 2 to assist passengers returning to Metro Manila from the provinces. 

More than 2,000 MMDA personnel will also be fielded to clear major roads and sidewalks of all types of obstruction.

The priority traffic choke points are the bus terminals in Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon City; Edsa-Cubao; Edsa-Taft, and Sampaloc, Manila; Edsa-Balintawak, Dangwa and Mindanao Avenue. 

Additional traffic personnel will also be deployed to the Southwest Integrated Provincial Terminal, which services public utility buses that ply the Cavite-Laguna-Batangas route. 

For traffic monitoring, the MMDA will field its “Agila 1” at the Araneta Center bus terminal on Oct. 30 and 31 and at the Manila North Cemetery on Nov. 1 and 2, and “Agila 2” at the South Cemetery on Nov. 1 and 2. Agila 1 and 2 are the agency’s mobile command centers, which are capable of sending real-time video footage to the MMDA’s Command and Communications Center in Makati City.