How did President-elect Duterte win in the National Capital Region? And not among a particular income class, but all? Despite being a virtual unknown when he started his national odyssey, despite the brash language, despite the cussing, the profanity, the irreverence?
Everyone and his mother now conclude it’s because life has become so unbearable for the average resident of Metro Manila. From traffic day in and day out, from the chaos on the streets, day in and night out, from all the vexations brought about by the incompetence that affected every single day of their now-miserable lives. And Duterte presented the only hope among the contenders: the “continuity” of “Daang Matuwid” that Roxas mouthed; the so-so promises of a Poe; the same tired clichés found wanting of a Binay. Duterte promised “matapang na solusyon, mabilis na aksyon.”
He promised to rid the streets and neighborhoods of drugs and crime, and to have zero tolerance for incompetence and corruption. In short, Duterte promised liberation from gridlock—lives rendered frustrating by sheer immobility, and the concomitant helplessness of a state of official nonchalance.
Gridlock had many faces, from lining up for hours for an MRT or LRT ride. From 10 kilometers per hour cooped up inside a bus, a taxi, a jeepney, even one’s own car, due to interminable traffic along Edsa, or Taft, or Buendia, or Quezon Avenue, on the way to the airport using Roxas Boulevard, or the C-5, wherever. And traffic in the air as well. Being told by a hoary announcement in the airport that your flight is delayed “due to late turn-around of your designated plane,” to waiting even further in the tarmac, because “we have been told by air traffic controllers to wait before taking off,” and then delayed even further because the plane has to keep circling atop Metro Manila or Cavite before it can land. Faster at times to fly in from Narita to Manila than from Cebu to Manila.
It has become a cacophony of every Metro Manila resident shouting: Liberate me from this gridlock!
Now it’s 15 days to go before the man from Davao takes his oath as President of the Republic in Malacañang. Fifteen days to go before the promise of swift and bold action begins its implementation.
For starters, Duterte chose a man who he knew from law school onwards, a self-made logistics entrepreneur, lawyer Art Tugade, to be his DOTC secretary. The man was at the helm of Clark Development Corporation, and in less than two years, made a howling success of the job, from showing sizable incomes to attracting investments to his area.
The tasks at DOTC may be daunting and formidable, but big man Tugade is a perfect fit. With the president’s full support, with Sonny Dominguez and Ben Diokno providing the ways and means, and Congress acting in similar cadence, the folks of NCR and nearby provinces should see measurable improvements in the next two to three years.
Many ideas have been floated, some from within the president-elect’s and the secretary-designates’ own circle. There are some bright ideas from the private sector as well.
From as simple a solution as getting people to walk using all-weather elevated walkways spanning traffic-choked Edsa’s sidewalk, to a monorail parallel to the Pasig River (from Marikina in the east to Manila in the west), to longer term and more expensive solutions such as a subway system—all are doable, with time frames from the immediate to 10 years.
There’s Duterte’s avowed program of expanding the rail systems, both for more efficient cargo transport as well as commuter relief, which likewise provides relief from the congestion of the inner cities. Imagine taking a train from Calamba in Laguna, or Malolos in Bulacan, right into the business districts of Makati and Manila, rather than hop in and out of buses and other modes of public transport?
If you live in Marikina and work in Manila, think of the convenience of taking a monorail spanning the Pasig River, with stops in Pasig City, Mandaluyong, Makati and Manila. Since government has right of ownership of the easement along the banks of the river, construction would be without right-of-way problems, the legal plague of many a government project.
If you could walk in an elevated walkway, covered and well-lit, clean and secured, from the corner of Edsa and Ayala, to the corner of Edsa and Guadalupe, would you not take the option of exercising your legs rather than paying and waiting for an hour riding public transport? After all, that’s probably about 3 to 4 kilometers of walking. Atop one of Edsa’s sidewalks, wouldn’t that be faster to construct? I heard this simple idea first from a son-in-law who posted the same on his Facebook page, complete with a bike path. Almost simultaneously, architect Dan Lichauco had a similar idea.
Now comes no less than Eduardo Yap of the Management Association of the Philippines suggesting that “there must be an issuance of an executive order to declare that a transportation and traffic crisis exists in Metro Manila and, with the concurrence of Congress, secure emergency powers for the President to address the crisis by mobilizing all government resources and undertaking necessary measures unhampered by appointments, procurement, budgetary and COA regulations during its presidency.”
“People cannot wait for too long,” Yap correctly stated.
Yes, take the bull by its horns.
Recall the time when Congress gave President Fidel V. Ramos emergency powers to deal with the power crisis inherited from the first Aquino administration, whose energy czar was taunted by media critics as the “prince of darkness” due to daily power outages?
The traffic and transport crises that have made life unbearable for Metro Manilans deserve such swift action and bold solutions.