BBM should be more innovative in responding the crisis besetting not Filipinos but most people around the world. Necessity is the mother of invention, as the cliche’ goes. So are crisis and disruption. There are some solution in the old Marcos playbook which he can apply not only in the NCR but also in the regional hubs.
I wrote the following back in October 2019 for The Lobbyist:
The never-ending debate about the traffic congestion came to a hilt again last week when Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo belied claims of the opposition that the government should act decisively to alleviate the collective plight of Metro Manila commuters whose quality of life has deteriorated due to the amount of time it takes to get from their residences to their schools or places of work.
The situation was aggravated again with the partial shutdown of LRT-2 due to an explosion attributed to the power regulator for part of the line malfunctioning. It brought up the issue again if the line is being properly maintained or not. It came just at the time that the line extension from Santolan to Masinag is about to be completed and start serving the residents of Marikina, Antipolo and Cainta. Commuters had to wake up as early as 3:00 a.m. to ensure that they would make it to work or class on time.
It didn’t help that the Senator who is most associated with the same issue came out with a statement about the operation of business class coaches on MRT-3. Grace Poe struck again much to the consternation of harried commuters who vented their ire against her on social media. The statement smacked of an elitist mindset contrary to the image of the Senator as pro-poor just like her father had been. Poe has opposed much of the proposals of the Department of Transportation such as the request for emergency powers and transport modernization. A very public verbal tiff ensued between the Senator and Secretary Arthur Tugade over the two issues.
As it was in the past when the debate got heated, the focus was lost on what should the solution be. The approach should be systematic and wholistic but this was again not on the minds of government officials in the transport sector. You wonder why the government doesn’t hire consultants who actually have the experience in planning mass transport systems in other ASEAN countries. Instead, the government continues to rely on political appointees who don’t even have the requisite qualifications let alone the experience in solving the problem.
The first step should actually be the formation of a Greater Metropolitan Manila Transport Authority. This agency will not only have jurisdiction over the cities and municipalities which compose Metro Manila but also the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal where most of Metro Manila’s labor force reside. Architect Felino Palafox Jr. has been repeatedly emphasizing this point to no avail. The root of the problem is the stop in the implementation of the master transport plan for Metro Manila which was completed in 1976. The 1986 coup which ousted President Marcos had the government bureaucracy being replaced en masse and with this went the technocrats in the various government departments and agencies who specialized in transport management.
The crux of the problem is traffic management as anarchy and chaos reign in the roads of Metro Manila. Motorists do battle with public utility vehicles every single day. The situation is aggravated by road works which take forever to complete. Road users are at the mercy of DPWH and LGUs contractors which don’t have any sense of urgency to finish road improvement or flood-control projects. Then there is the never-ending service improvements of the water utilities which dig up newly-cemented roads to lay pipes and construct sewerage systems.
Route rationalization and the formulation of a point-to-point intermodal transport system is the key to maximizing road use for the greater benefit of commuters over private motorists. If there is a modern and convenient transport system in place, there would be no reason for private motorists not to consider this option as opposed to their using their motor vehicles on a daily basis.
The debate continues but for so long as it doesn’t include a viable solution which addresses the problem it is pointless. With an average commute and drive time of three hours one-way or six hours back and forth, the average Metro Manila resident wastes the equivalent of sixty days per annum stuck in traffic. It is no wonder then why the country is again lagging in foreign direct investments as compared to our more progressive ASEAN neighbors.
Outgoing President Duterte has addressed the issue with the rehabilitation and upgrading of the PNR’s rail infrastructure north and south of Metro Manila, which will be completed by 2023. This is the North-South Commuter line, integrated with LRT-1 and 2 at Tutuban Station.
However, there is still a need to develop the point-to-point, intermodal transport route rationalization, which should also use the Pasig River as a ferry system for east to west and vice-versa travel, within the NCR.
In the bad old Marcos days, as the opposition characterizes them, the Metro Manila Transit Corporation was established and the private bus companies were organized into consortia plying specific routes with designated loading/unloading points along the routes. The rationale was the implementation of a hub-and-spoke mass transport system.
But after 1986, it was anarchy and chaos on the roads as everything was “democratized” including the transport sector. Instead of providing jeepney and bus operators subsidies, why not re-establish the Metro Manila Transit Corporation as a GOCC and do away with the jeepneys in order to have better road and commuter discipline? The route rationalization program should be designed to focus on picking up and feeding passengers to the existing light rail system, which will provide commuters convenience once the common station at North EDSA is completed.
While the government is working on this, the pandemic has made what was thought impossible or difficult before, possible.
Work-from-home has been the norm for the past two years since the pandemic began and lockdowns were insituted. The pandemic is not over yet even if the number of cases have gone down. The UK is experimenting with a four-day work week with 100% pay. I am not saying we adopt the same given the nuances which companies have to deal with when it comes to the average Filipino employee but it is worth considering if productivity is kept at the same level or even exceeds the previous norm.
The government should focus on minimizing consumption of petroleum products and what better way than to promote mass transport and maximize efficiencies and productivity than maximizing the suffering wrought by inflation and high fuel prices? What is to be implemented for the NCR should also be the case for the regional hubs.
Marcos has reiterated several times during the campaign the need for digitization of the bureacracy. This is more within reach now with the appointment of an IT professional at the DICT, Ivan John Uy, who is also a lawyer. Uy is credited with the digitization of the Supreme Court. It remains to be seen how he will go about the humongous challenge of digitizing the government bureaucracy.
Among the Presidential candidates, it was only Sen. Ping Lacson who had a whole-of-government approach focusing on cutting down red tape, minimizing corruption and easing the public burden of transacting with government offices. What is imperative is digitization, inter-operability and data-sharing among government departments and agencies both at the national and local levels which is necessary to maximize efficiencies and create synergies.
Even these common sense solutions present a challenge because of the bureaucracy’s resistance to change. Marcos has an enormous amount of political capital he can expend. The Filipino people have given him a resounding mandate to reform government.
Duterte hit the ground running with the drug war and the bureaucratic tweaks which fell under his goal of a comfortable life for every Filipino. A comfortable and convenient commuting experience and ease of doing business with government departments and agenices will go a long way not only for the average Filipino but for foreign investors as well.
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