One more behind!

The conductor was ushering me aboard an EDSA Carousel bus. My first ride on the service, although commuting itself was hardly new to me. For years, public transportation had been a part of my everyday life.

For me, it was a return to something familiar. For many aboard, it was another day of what could easily become an ordeal.

The bus carried a moving cross-section of Philippine society. Workers with their tools, office employees, professionals, older passengers, and veteran commuters who seemed to know where to stand, when to move, and how to claim a rare empty seat.

I imagined a father rushing home with his child’s favorite pancit, like the hardworking family men Fernando Poe Jr. portrayed in old Filipino movies. I could not know anyone’s story, of course. But everyone appeared to have somewhere to be, and perhaps someone waiting.

And there was me, hurrying, too. I had a column to write before these thoughts escaped me. Inspiration, unfortunately, does not always come with a return ticket.

Beyond the concrete barrier, private vehicles inched along. I recognized myself among their drivers. On another day I might have been behind one of those steering wheels. This time, I had a seat and was moving faster. A pleasant reversal.

The Department of Transportation deserves credit for the EDSA Carousel. Dedicated lanes, more orderly operations, and the recent reopening of rehabilitated stations are welcome improvements. One can appreciate progress without pretending the journey is complete.

After all, a commuter’s day rarely begins or ends at the Carousel. There are jeepney rides, queues, transfers, and routes that seem to operate much as they did years ago. A faster stretch of EDSA does not necessarily mean an easier journey from door to door.

And while my ride was an occasional return to public transport, for others it is the unavoidable beginning and ending of nearly every working day.

That was when another thought occurred to me.

We speak of an eight-hour workday. But how many hours must a worker surrender simply to fulfill those eight hours?

Someone may leave home before sunrise and return well after sunset. There is the work itself, certainly, but also the waiting, standing, walking, squeezing into a vehicle, and wondering whether one will arrive on time. Then, after a full shift, the same journey in reverse.

The commute may not count as working time. The fatigue certainly counts. So do the hours taken from rest, family, and the small pleasures that make a life more than a livelihood.

The workplace has physical boundaries. Our concern for the welfare of those who work need not end there. This is not a call to make employers responsible for the commute. It is a reason to see the worker more completely, from factory floor to bus seat and every step in between.

Recently, the Department of Labor and Employment, under Secretary Francis Tolentino, announced preparations for guidelines to protect workers from extreme heat associated with El Niño. It is a welcome, forward-looking initiative: an effort to anticipate harm rather than merely respond to it.

Workplace heat and commuting are different concerns. Yet both prompt a question worth asking: What conditions shape a worker’s well-being, including those beyond the workplace gate?

Perhaps DoLE, alongside transportation authorities, could give that question some thought.

Not every worthwhile idea needs to begin with a new law, program, or obligation. Sometimes it begins by noticing what millions have long endured.

I remembered the conductor making room for one more.

The working day may have ended. The journey home, and everything waiting there, had not.