The “no vax, no ride” policy of the Department of Transportation will take effect Monday, Jan. 17, announced DoTr Usec Artemio Tuazon Jr, but it has already drew strong opposition from some sectors.

But Leodegario "Ka Leody" Quitain de Guzman, chairperson of the socialist federation of militant trade unions, "Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino" said the policy has "no legal basis, violates the right of the citizenry and difficult to implement" for transport workers who have no access to the database of the vaccinated members of the populace.

"This DOTr policy will only cause the proliferation of fake vaccination cards to enable people to comply," he pointed out.

"It's just playing into the administration's blame game on the unvaccinated."

Others condemned the policy in the NCR as "anti-poor, draconian and punitive".

The DOTr retaliated by stating that "Severe Covid infections caused by non-vaccination result to undue burden on our health care system. We want to prevent a repeat of the public transport shutdown, like what happened in MRT, LRT and PNR in the past, as most front-facing passengers were infected with the virus. We are doing everything we can to maintain and keep our public transport operations safe and running."

Nevertheless, members of the public stressed that the policy is difficult to implement.

At present, people are already required to present their vaccination cards to be admitted inside malls, establishments and provincial buses.

However, there is no way the people checking the vax cards could know if they are fake or not.