One problem related to manual transmission has been reported for the 2003 Mazda Protege 5. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
My daughter drove my Mazda Protege 5 to pick up my son and to retrieve something from a friend's house. She parked the car on the friend's flat driveway, placing it in first gear. While she was inside of the house, the car somehow popped out of gear and picked up enough momentum to roll onto the road. The road was a hill, which caused the car to accelerate. The car ended up striking a house, causing damage to both the house and the shrubbery outside of the house. Nobody could find any apparent problems with the car/transmission.