Life is a metaphor and reality can, indeed, make ironies of people, which I have discovered while interacting with jeepney-transport leaders and researching on Google on studies about traffic solutions that led me to statements from expert economists of the Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS).
We need PhDs (Push Here Dummies)? Schooled in economics myself from University of the Philippines Diliman, the contrasting points of view jolted me to my wits, after less-schooled, but street- smart jeepney-transport leaders expressed their commonsensical arguments, which turned out to make more sense than those of our university-bred economists, who tend to wear the letters “PhD” as appendages to their names.
Jestingly, it made me think “PhD” meant “Push Here Dummies,” which is an appropriate description of the ubiquitous elevator boy or girl in almost every major government building, as if elevator passengers do not know how to push buttons to command the elevators for directions to specific floors, either up or down.
I don’t know if this is any indication why our elevator-like economy and society have been going up and down as manifested, for instance, by the euphoria over Edsa 1986, only to slide back like idiotic lemmings racing against each other to their deaths into the sea.
Again and again, we have seen the same pattern throughout history. Like his mom, former President Benigno S. Aquino III was catapulted to the presidency, on a euphoric victory, capitalizing on the battle cries daang matuwid (straight path) and “kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.” We hope, this time, the euphoric victory of President Duterte does not end in another ningas cogon, a flame that dies down in time.
Who’s sane, who’s stupid? Our title alluding to our economists is a parody of US President Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign statement, “It’s the economy, stupid!”
Our PIDS economists, Sonny Domingo, Roehlano Briones and Lovely Tolin, in their February 2, 2015, article published in a national daily, entitled “The cost of Metro Manila traffic congestion,” claimed “there are too many buses, or 12,595 buses, operating within Metro Manila, including provincial buses, that are run by 1,122 operators, a contrast to the four private bus consortia and the government Metro Manila Transit Corp. in the 1970s.”
In blaming partly the buses for the traffic, they recommend that “the first necessary step is to limit the number of buses in franchised routes,” implicitly noting the proliferation of colorums in excess of passenger riding capacity. It is ironic that the same brand of economists recommended three decades back the liberalization of public transport that led to what they now blame as the anarchic traffic.
In contrast, new transport leaders, like Ronald Baraoidan, chairman of the National Jeepney Federation for Environmental Sustainable Transport; Malet Lorenzo, chairman of the Luzviminda Transport Federation; and Reynaldo Campo, president of the Pasay Federation of Unified Transport Providers of SM Mall of Asia, argue in Tagalog, “why limit the franchises on public transport, but not limit the entry of private cars, given the limited road space.” These groups want to go green, but oppose “transport modernization” that translates to phase-out.
For them, “it is more stupid to put more restrictions and moratorium on public-transport franchises, but no moratorium on private cars,” which carry an average load of only 1.2 passengers per car, based on the Japan International Cooperation Agency-funded Department of Transportation and Communications study. In contrast, jeepneys carry about 20 passengers and buses about 60 to 80 passengers. Effectively, one bus is equivalent to 60 cars of road space, which can even be more, considering the space needed in-between cars. In fact, “Colorums” are allowed to perpetuate corruption.
When assumptions go wrong. Why many economists end up wrong, is mainly because they start with faulty assumptions, which lead them into a “groove thinking” that has its own logic, that, at times, end up wrong, not being grounded on reality. The PIDS economists were trapped in static assumptions, because they probably often see buses competing and clogging bus stops that cause traffic.
On the contrary, if public transport is more efficient, motorists will be willing to leave their cars and take public transport that will trigger more demand for public buses.
The Seoul experience is the perfect example. Gyeng Chul-kim, PhD, and former president of the Korea Transport Institute, says that the massive road-building and 106 overpasses that his father built to solve traffic, which was the logical thing to do then, only worsened traffic, as car vehicles increased 50 times over time.
When he took over, he dismantled more than half of the overpasses, and revived the rivers and creeks that were covered by these road bridges to accommodate more cars; and instead required more buses and trains that solved traffic. And yet, sales of cars continued to soar, as people bought cars because they could afford but simply leave their cars at car parks or bus and train stations.
Our transport experts can also learn from inventor Francis Yuseco, who has innovative, but inclusive, solutions to traffic, which deserve a separate discussion altogether.
Lost in the forest with a compass? Our PIDS experts, despite being guided by their economic compasses and sophisticated tools, can still get lost in the forest of reality. They admitted adapting the study of the CREW Diagnostic Country Report: Philippines, which was conducted with support from the Centre for Competition, Investment and Economic Regulation, Jaipur, India.”
Even if you know where North is in the proverbial forest, you cannot go linear straight, as there are cultural humps, political quick sands, social heavy undergrowth and legal obstacles along the way. Worse, ivory-tower economists are waylaid into churning out sophisticated econometric models and quantitative analyses of counting the trees figuratively, but not being able to see the forest.
Another anecdote describing them is on how they count cattle moving in a ranch. They use sophisticated methods, like figuratively counting the legs and dividing them by four,” which is mathematically accurate, but also smacks of stupidity.
Wisdom or More Dumb than Wish. Personally, I had my own follies of learning from the less learned. Many years back, a Higaonon tribal chieftain, in reaction to the impulsiveness of our youth, told me in their language: “If you are in a hurry, slow down.” This is similar to the quotation “haste makes waste.”
They have “NUGGETS of wisdom na hindi ko agad na-GETS” (which I didn’t easily get). It dawned on me the wisdom I thought I had was more dumb than wish or wise.
As Samuel Goldwin says, “Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius.” Bertrand Russell says: “Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.”
Perhaps, our technocrats need to also learn from President Duterte himself, who does not really come from the hoi polloi or the masses, but has imbibed their language, learned compassion with the heart, acquired the indigenous wisdom to become street smart and the balls to have the courage to make bold decisions.
E-mail: mikealunan@yahoo.com