Mobility for all

Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!

Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.

Visit Suniway.ph to learn

January 22, 2026 | 12:00am

The Department of Transportation (DOTr) recently announced it would adopt the Accessible Travel Policy (ATP) for all rail systems, marking the pivot toward mobility for everyone especially commuting senior citizens, persons with disabilities (PWDs) and pregnant women.

Under Department Order 2025?024, railway operators must train frontline staff on disability awareness and gender sensitivity, provide wheelchair boarding assistance and help points, make audio/visual announcements clearer and set up feedback channels and regular accessibility audits. These standards will be integrated into projects like the North-South Commuter Railway (NSCR) and the Metro Manila Subway (MMSP), ensuring that accessibility will not become a mere afterthought but a design requirement from day one.

This comes as a very welcome and pleasant development as we start the new year. For years, many of us, especially seniors, have watched our public transportation system evolve with equal parts hope and exasperation. Those of us who remember when commuting was simpler can’t help but feel that what used to be a manageable routine has now become an exhausting, if not degrading, ordeal.

Older Filipinos have long dealt with a transport system that practically tells them to stay home. Broken elevators, steep stairs, faint announcements and messy curbside drop-offs turn simple trips into unsafe and exhausting challenges. Even getting to the platform can mean real pain. For someone with mobility challenges, these gaps do not just create inconvenience – they create barriers.

This is why the Accessible Travel Policy is a desperately needed shift in priorities. It focuses on operations and maintenance – the unglamorous, everyday details that actually shape a commuter’s experience.

Now, vulnerable commuters are seeing signs of real change. In recent months, the DOTr has begun steering our transportation system to becoming inclusive, humane and designed for everyone, not just the young and able-bodied.

Just recently, the fare discount for seniors and PWDs across LRT?1, LRT?2 and MRT?3 was expanded to 50 percent. Paired with the ATP, the new system reduces barriers, builds ridership and signals that vulnerable commuters are not burdens but valued members of the public.

Achieving a truly accessible public transport system should not be limited to railways alone – it requires a holistic approach. Seniors and PWDs rely just as much on jeepneys, buses, UV express vans, tricycles and the walk in between. The DOTr’s Accessible Travel Policy is a strong start but it must expand across all modes if we want a system that truly works for everyone. When cities move seniors and PWDs with ease, they move everyone better – parents with strollers, workers with luggage, tourists exploring the country.

The ATP itself will not erase congestion, but it will restore dignity and independence to millions who have long been excluded by design. With fare relief now in place through 2028 and accessibility finally being taken seriously, we are sending the right message: you belong in our transport system and we are rebuilding it to prove it.

This momentum is echoed in Congress. Senior Citizens party-list Rep. Rodolfo “Ompong” Ordanes filed House Bill 2126 to modernize and expand the country’s Accessibility Law (Batas Pambansa 344). The bill recognizes that today’s barriers extend beyond ramps and railings – they include transport systems, digital platforms and increasingly complex public services. It proposes updated standards for public and private infrastructure, commercial spaces, recreational facilities and housing developments, ensuring universal and inclusive design from the onset. It also strengthens mobility rights by requiring transportation providers to adopt priority seating, improve terminals and put measures in place that allow seniors and PWDs to travel safely, comfortably and independently. At its core, the bill affirms a simple truth: accessibility is not a privilege, it is a right.

Progress does not happen overnight, but it starts with clear intention and real follow?through. As a senior citizen myself, what gives me hope is seeing accessibility finally treated as something essential, not optional – built into stations, budgets and everyday operations. That is when the vulnerable sectors can trust that the improvements that they are promised will not disappear with the next maintenance problem or policy shift.

Real change also requires all of us to act. Government can set the standards but local government units, the operators, private partners and even ordinary commuters are the ones that shape the daily experience. A small act of kindness like offering a seat, clearing a path, helping someone who moves a little slower, can make a big difference. When we look out for one another, accessibility becomes more than infrastructure, it becomes culture.

When we can finally say, consistently and with confidence, that our grandparents can travel across the city without fear and that people in wheelchairs can complete a trip with dignity, then we will know we’ve built something truly meaningful. With acting Transportation Secretary Giovanni Lopez at the helm and a public that believes in compassion and malasakit, I genuinely believe we are headed in that direction. Little by little, we are creating a transport system that does not just move people but actually lifts everyone forward.