By Leslie Ann G. Aquino The Nagkaisa labor coalition on Monday, June 1, assailed the national government for its failure to provide adequate public transportation on the first day of the general community quarantine (GCQ) in Metro Manila. The labor coalition said chaos and confusion reigned in the streets of Metro Manila as hundreds of thousands of workers scramble to get to work because the Department of Transportation (DOTr) failed to perform its primary mandate to provide "efficient, and dependable transportation systems.” The group said physical distancing was also completely compromised as commuters waited for transport services. Nagkaisa said this was contrary to the claim of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) of its full readiness for June 1. "With this transport fiasco, the DOTr and the MMDA risks wasting all the sacrifices forced on everyone for more than 2 months of lockdown to stop COVID-19," the group said. Nagkaisa said all these could have been avoided had the national government provided “safe and free” transportation by implementing service contracting of public utility vehicles (PUVs) that could have augmented the limited public transportation that we have. Proposed by Move As One coalition, the group said service contracting of PUVs would not only ensure adequate public transportation in areas under the general community quarantine (GCQ), but also protect thousands of transport workers as they earn much needed livelihood. "Under service contracting, the government pays the operators and drivers to run predetermined routes to ferry workers. This is far different from the prevailing 'boundary system,' in which earnings are based on the number of passengers ferried," said Nagkaisa. The group then called on the DOTr, the MMDA and the national government to immediately address this dangerous situation or risk worsening the continuous rise in COVID-19 cases. "In its mad rush to jump start a stalled economy without due consideration to the safety and welfare of workers, the national government has once again succeeded in heaping more unnecessary burdens to the working class," said the group.