The Senate Committee on Public Services sees no need yet to rush new laws to fast-track solutions to ease daily traffic gridlocks in Metro Manila’s major thoroughfares.
At its public hearing Tuesday amid the worsening traffic situation, the panel’s chairman, Sen. Grace Poe, reminded government’s transport officials that “we all agreed that we need research-based and data-driven proposals to solve traffic.”
Poe pointed out that the present crisis was “preceded by decades of piecemeal, or tingi-tingi, planning and implementation.”
For instance, the senator shared commuters’ frustrations, noting that “the idea of integrated terminals has existed since two administrations ago,” recalling that “it was continued in the Aquino administration with the bidding of the PITx and the Taguig ITx; and then PITx opened, only for city terminals in Laguna and Valenzuela to be designated as new provincial terminals.”
The senator stressed that what the committee wants to see is “a transportation system master plan, which identifies short-, medium- and long-term projects, with sufficient funding and achievable deadlines.”
“Moreover,” she added “we need implementation, implementation, implementation.”
“I think no other urban area in the world has a longer list of unimplemented plans and decades of study than Mega Manila,” said Poe.
The exasperated chairman of the Public Services Committee stated the panel’s position is that “existing laws are sufficient” to promptly address the traffic problem.
“We are now making this clear: Our existing laws are sufficient for the purposes of procurement and right-of-way acquisition. The Supreme Court already issued cases and circulars addressing the delays in these cases. Clearly, for all intents and purposes, under these existing laws, a lot could’ve been done with or without emergency powers,” she stressed.
“I think no other urban area in the world has a longer list of unimplemented plans and decades of study than Mega Manila.”
Sen. Grace Poe
The senator asserted “it is not the lack of powers but the lack of a master plan.”
“We have an approved dream plan but it is unclear if our transport agencies have adopted it for implementation,” she added noting that “the cost to implement the dream plan is less than what we are losing daily due to the traffic problem.”
“Tama si Sen. Ralph G. Recto, mas mahal pa ang ating nabubuwis sa traffic kaysa ’yung ating budget para solusyonan ang traffic [Sen. Recto was right all along. What we spend ostensibly to resolve the traffic problem is a lot higher than the solutions we could come up with].”
According to Poe, it is not the lack of powers but the lack of a more proactive stand by the implementors concerned. “We need firmer actions from the Executive who could very well function as it is, if they want to. Pukpok talaga ang kailangan [we need to work harder].”
The senator made it clear that lawmakers were not to blame for not buying the Executive’s idea that “emergency powers” will solve the problem.
Image credits: Namhwi Kim | Dreamstime.com