Maybe Transportation Secretary Arturo Tugade doesn’t really need emergency powers. Perhaps what he really requires is an emergency exit to take him out of the Cabinet.
I’ve been paying close attention to Tugade during the three months or so that he has been President Rodrigo Duterte’s transportation czar. And I’m sad to say that, unlike many of the seasoned executives and technocrats who have been doing a great job as alter egos of the president in various departments, Tugade hasn’t really been pulling his weight.
I know that Duterte has asked Congress to give him emergency powers to solve the traffic gridlock that has made the lives of millions of Filipinos in Metro Manila, Cebu and other major cities a daily hell on earth. But Tugade has been acting like he needs special congressional authority to fix even the most basic of problems that require simple, common-sense solutions.
And it’s not because he hasn’t been given enough already. Very early on, Tugade’s DoTr was given overall mandate to manage traffic in Metro Manila, a mandate that once resided chiefly with the Metro Manila Development Authority.
But despite the broad powers granted to Tugade while he awaited the granting of the emergency measures that Duterte asked Congress to give him, I can’t remember anything of significance that Tugade has done. Worse, I don’t recall traffic ever being as bad as it is nowadays, not even during the time of Tugade’s unlamented predecessor, the eternally clueless Joseph Emilio Abaya.
I will give Tugade some of the credit for solving the infamous “tanim bala” extortion scam at the airport. By employing mere common sense (which is not, as far as I know, a special power), airport authorities put an end to the lucrative racket by simply confiscating bullets found in passengers’ luggage and then waving them through to the departure areas: no fuss, no shakedown.
But that’s about the only real work that Tugade has gotten done that I can remember during his first hundred days. And it’s not even related to solving the horrendous traffic on our streets.
Yesterday, the DoTr, the MMDA and other agencies working to fix the traffic problem came up another temporary solution, that of closing the “window” given to motorists on days when they are not allowed to travel on several major thoroughfares, particularly Edsa. The no-window scheme aims to prevent one-fifth of the vehicle population from using the clogged streets on weekdays, something that is likely to provide immediate relief to those who will be able to use their cars.
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But everyone and his Uber driver knows that this is a palliative measure that will only make the vendors of motor vehicles happy, as one-car motorists scramble to buy a second vehicle in order to remain mobile for a full week. The deployment of a dozen more P2P buses to take up the slack is just too pitifully inadequate.
Besides, at the rate Tugade is getting work done, I wonder if he is not actually sabotaging Duterte’s plans of solving the traffic mess, something he promised during the campaign. And I worry that Duterte may realize only too late that Tugade is just not the man for the job he was given.
At the moment, I think most people still believe that the previous administration is responsible (and rightly so) for converting Edsa and other major roads into giant parking lots at all hours nearly every day of the week. The combination of Abaya and his boss Noynoy Aquino, who once declared that traffic jams are good because they are a sign of economic progress, was so damaging that giving Duterte special powers to untangle the mess they left behind even sounded like a good idea.
But Tugade has been the recipient of congressional pushback to the special powers plan because he still cannot seem to explain why he needs more authority and what, specifically, he needs it for. And he’s failing to convince even known allies of the president in both Houses of Congress.
In the Senate, Tugade is getting it mostly from Senator Grace Poe, who has consistently called out the secretary for his lack of specifics. In the House, Tugade is also facing opposition from a group of congressmen led by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, who has been questioning the ties of the transportation secretary and his top officials to their former employers in the private sector —who just happen to be partners of the government in several big-ticket infrastructure projects.
(Late last month, right before the Duterte administration marked its hundredth day, Tugade’s office trumpeted the dubious “achievement” of getting the three big businessmen involved in the MRT3-LRT1-MRT7 common station project to sign an agreement. If signing an agreement and crowing about it through a photo opportunity is now considered an achievement by Tugade, I think he’s just about overstayed his welcome in the Cabinet.)
As for the special powers that Duterte is seeking in Congress through Tugade, I still believe that they could help, particularly in speeding up the construction of much-needed infrastructure projects. But right now, I think Tugade has all the powers he needs—he’s just not using them, for reasons that only Tugade knows.
