Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade on Wednesday vowed that if President Rodrigo Duterte will be granted emergency powers to solve the country’s transport problems, everything will be compliant with the Freedom of Information executive order, accountable and time-bound.
Tugade, together with other transport officials made this assurance before senators at the hearing on emergency powers chaired by Senator Grace Poe, chairman of the committee on public services.
Describing the country’s transport problems as “chaotic,” he said “we will give you a timeline in our pursuit to what we think is necessary for this country. We shall be open and transparent when it comes to cost.”
Tugade stressed among the department’s priorities was to first create a single, synchronized authority to manage the traffic system in Metro Manila.
Traffic management is currently shared by the Metro Manila Development Authority, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, the Land Transportation Office and local government units.
The Transportation secretary did not make it clear if a traffic czar was needed but raised the possibility of suspending the power of LGUs relating to traffic systems for the duration of the implementation of emergency powers.
He also said he would want to open roads of private subdivisions to vehicles to help ease traffic but Senator Vicente Sotto III objected to this idea.
Tugade assured the solons that the government would ensure the safety of homeowners because the choice of private roads will not be arbitrary or whimsical.
“We will not compromise safety of subdivisions. Security mechanisms and security expenses will be borne by the government,” he said.
The Transportation chief also said roads inside subdivisions would only be used at certain times, such as during peak hours.
“There are so many cars on the road. Really excessive. So we have to reduce the number of vehicles, build roads or use the roads of others, such as privately owned in subdivisions,” he said.
But Sotto said using privately-owned roads would do little to solve the bottlenecks. Instead, he urged Tugade to go after illegally parked vehicles.
“Remove illegally parked vehicles in the entire Metro Manila and you’ll practically solve 50 percent of the traffic problems,” said Sotto as he noted that there is no traffic problems in Singapore because parking on the streets is prohibited and vehicles are only allowed to park in designated parking lots.
He urged Tugade to concentrate more on clearing city streets of illegally parked vehicles than opening private subdivisions.
“We have rights to these roads in Metro Manila, but we just cannot use them. Nobody is passing through them because they were turned into parking lots, left and right,” said Sotto.
The senator told Tugade it might be better to study on opening first city streets. He said community-based traffic and navigation mobile application Waze demonstrates how viable city streets are to help decongest gridlocks.
During the hearing, Transport Undersecretary for Roads and Infrastructure Anneli Lontoc said emergency powers could also help the agency address the backlog in license plates and even acquire a plate-making machine so plates could be made in the Philippines instead of relying on the Dutch-Filipino consortium that bagged the car plate deal.
Undersecretary for Air Bobby Lim, meanwhile, said powers would also be needed to address air traffic congestion by transferring general flights operations in Manila to other airports such as Clark and Sangley.
On the other hand, Undersecretary for Rails and Toll Roads Noel Kintanar said powers would be needed to relax procurement rules for the acquisition of railway system parts.
MMDA Officer-in-Charge Emerson Carlos ended the transport presentation by saying that Metro Manila will also need 3,000 more kilometers of roads to alleviate traffic congestion particularly in Edsa. With PNA