MANILA - Eight days after being forced to take the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) at the height of a terrible rain-induced traffic jam on EDSA on the night of September 11, Kris Aquino on Wednesday took at least three modes of public transportation around Metro Manila for a segment on her television show.
According to her crew, Aquino took a jeepney from the SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City to the EDSA station of the Light Rail Transit (LRT), walked along the crowded walkway connecting MRT and LRT, and took a train ride to Roosevelt Avenue station in Quezon City, where she would then take a bus.
LRT Administration personnel who coordinated the taping of her train ride said the President’s youngest sister went through the steps that regular train riders take: undergo security check, buy a ticket, and queue for the train.
Kim Chiu, another television star, joined Aquino during the 20-kilometer train ride.
Aquino talked to fellow passengers on the train. “Magkano ho binayaran nyo? Di ba ho napaka convenient? Alam nyo ba na may subsidy ang gobyerno dito? (How much was the ticket you bought? Isn’t this so convenient? Did you know that the government subsidizes the train riders?)
To Kim Chu, she said, “Di ba ang linis? (How clean).”
She interviewed LRTA Administrator Honorito Chaneco, who also accompanied Aquino during the train ride, about the annual P6-billion subsidy that the government shoulders for the almost half a billion passengers of MRT and and the two lines of LRT (LRT-1 on Taft and Rizal Avenue and LRT-2 on Ramon Magsaysay and Aurora Boulevard.
She also asked him about the planned Cavite Extension for LRT-1, the bidding of which was rescheduled for 2014.
Aquino and her crew taped this segment for her show on a Wednesday, one of the busiest days for LRT as this is when Our Lady of Perpetual Help devotees go to attend the hourly novena mass at the Redemptorist Church in Paranaque, a few hundred steps away from the LRT terminal station in Baclaran.
Filipino commuters have dared government officials, especially those dealing with public transport, to take the bus at least once a month so that they would have an idea of what commuters go through every day, and come up with reasonable solutions to the horrendous traffic situation in the metropolis.
Some government officials, notably Chairman Francis Tolentino of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda, have made token gestures in response to the challenge.
