GRANTING President Duterte emergency powers is not the solution to crippling daily traffic gridlocks in metropolitan Manila’s main thoroughfares, Sen. Grace Poe said Tuesday, after presiding at a Senate hearing on a planned provincial bus ban among other measures being eyed to ease road congestion.
“The problem is lack of understanding,” said Poe, pointing out that “right-of-way issues and temporary restraining orders cannot be covered by the emergency powers.”
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Poe conceded, “we cannot do everything with it [emergency powers],” adding that “maybe” the proponents of the emergency-powers option, whom she did not name, “just want no bidding” for projects to ease traffic problems.
Still, Poe—who chairs the Committee on Public Services—said she was not closing the door on such an option but wanted to see the plans for projects to be carried out under emergency powers. “We are open but submit the plans for the emergency powers.”
Drive vs ‘colorum’
This, as Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, in separate interviews, suggested that government regulators step up the drive against “colorum,” referring to unfranchised public bus and jeepneys, plying Metro Manila streets.
Drilon also suggested a review of the powers of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority “as far as traffic is concerned,” pointing out that conflicting claims of MMDA and local governments “hamstrung efforts” to ease the traffic mess.
For his part, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian voiced doubts that plans to build four “intermodal bus terminals” could reduce traffic “instead of just limiting buses” to the metropolis boundaries. “Do we have a simulation for that?” he asked the guest officials.
Senate Majority Floor Leader Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri pushed for the construction of elevated walkways and bike lanes along Edsa.
Zubiri pressed the MMDA on “the elevated walkway project that has long been budgeted for by the national government and even included in the General Appropriations Act. I see no clear logical reason why it was not implemented. Compared to other infrastructure projects where Right-of-Way issues usually cause delays, this project will not be met with much opposition since government owns the land. We will have to talk only with the public utility companies, which I doubt would oppose this particular public-friendly project.”
Zubiri’s proposal was supported by the representatives of ALT and MOVE Manila, an alternative transport advocacy and commuters groups, respectively.
“Last week, commuters did the best of the ‘carmageddon’ situation by walking instead of waiting for four hours inside buses in a standstill in Edsa. I myself would have done that, walked to get home. That crisis is what I precisely hoped to resolve way back in August 2016 in my ‘Inclusive Mobility speech.” Zubiri first spoke of the concept of Inclusive Mobility in the Senate in his first privilege speech upon assumption in the Senate in 2016.
Zubiri cited other countries’ successful use of elevated walkways with lanes for walking, biking and even mopeds in the entire Metro Manila up to Parañaque.
He also proposed the use of Pasig River as a major mode of transportation.
‘3 years of our lives’
Speaking at the start of the hearing of the Senate Committee on Public Services, Poe acknowledged that “a specter is haunting Mega Manila—the specter of traffic [that] takes away our time—28,000 hours, or around three years of our lives, in fact.”
At the outset, she lamented that MMDA has turned Metro Manilans as “guinea pigs” for traffic solutions for years now.
“In 2015, they said the “chokepoints” at Edsa were the cause [of traffic jams]. Three years after, they tried the singles-only ban–which only moved traffic to the secondary roads,” the senator said, in a mix of English and Filipino.
She recalled an earlier attempt to “put Edsa on a ‘road diet’—as a solution for a highway that is bloated by traffic. And since the 1980s, every possible variation of the number-coding scheme has been tried. Ironically, this only resulted in drivers buying ‘coding cars,’ or extra vehicles for use on a ‘coding day’. This is a textbook example of a perverse incentive.”
Poe pointed out that the banning of provincial buses along Edsa is the latest MMDA experiment.
“The plan hinges on three steps: First, ‘interim terminals’ would be established, and provincial bus stations within the city would be abolished. Second, provincial buses would be required to terminate their trips at the integrated terminals. Third, city buses would only be allowed to drive on the yellow lanes. These plans were achieved through various issuances from 2012 to the present,” the senator said, adding, “It sounds like a good plan until we actually get to the facts.”
She then cited these facts:
“First, buses and jeeps account for 70 percent of all trips in Mega Manila. Unduly reducing these vehicles without providing for other modes of mass transportation will only result in longer queues and shorter patience.”
Second, she added, “there are 247,000 private vehicles in the region, maybe even more and these take up 80 percent of the roads. So the sheer volume of vehicles is an intrinsic part of the traffic problem.”
In fact, Poe added, even MMDA General Manager Jojo Garcia has been quoted as saying: “‘The provincial bus accounts for just a small percentage of the cause of traffic. I think that’s only about 5 percent of the total traffic.”
The third fact, which Poe cited as the most important, is this: “Encouraging private vehicles has never been a good transport policy. A bus can carry 50 people; a car carries 5; and the jeep, 12. Banning over 3,000 provincial buses will result in 15,000 additional cars passing on Edsa,” said Poe.
She noted that “ignorance of these facts was evident in the results”: The buses may be seen clustered and barely moving on the yellow lane, while private vehicles zip through the highway. What used to be a commute via bus from Commonwealth Market to Ortigas of one and a half hours, has stretched to three and a half hours. Some people just chose to walk. Others looked for alternatives like the MRT, where the lines were blockbusters; or they took a Grab or habal-habal which of course cost them more.”
Poe continued: And here’s the rub: Due to the writ of preliminary injunction issued by a branch of the Quezon City RTC, the bus ban was implemented on a ‘voluntary’ basis. A mere 24 out 3,300 buses ‘volunteered’ in good faith,” the senator said, adding, “And at the end of the day, they went back to traveling straight to Manila because there were no passengers in Valenzuela and Sta. Rosa,” where the integrated terminals were located.
Poe disputed the claim that only drivers of buses exhibit a “lack of discipline,” adding, “it is equally true that many drivers of cars, buses, and jeepneys are equally undisciplined. Let those who have never swerved, used the wrong lane, or forgot to use their signal light cast the first stone.”
She expressed hope the hearing would clarify a lot of issues and allow for a better means of consultations with and by the MMDA.
Image credits: Roy Domingo