Newspaper reports say Metro Manila’s traffic gridlock is the worst, or at least one of the worst, in the world. Television news constantly features the horrendous visual congestion that is said to cost the country something like P3 billion per day!
These days there are debates about the suggested need for a “traffic czar.” The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) manager disputes this, saying it is not needed. Does he have a better solution? Every budget year, the National Government allocates billions of pesos for more and more infrastructure in Metro Manila that is supposedly designed to loosen the overcrowding; yet it just seems to get worse and worse.
The problem, it seems to me, is the inability to think strategically about this. More one-ways, more skyways, and more high rails have not helped. These are more expensive interventions versus symptoms, but not versus the causes.
What, fundamentally are the causes of the heavy traffic?
The extreme primacy in economics and governance of the National Capital Region causing much travel from provinces to Metro Manila, and from zone to zone.
The metropolis’ rapidly increasing population from year to year due to attractive job opportunities in the Center. Metro Manila is like a combination of both New York City and Washington DC in one place.
The inadequate public transport system that causes the acquisition of more and more private cars. Probably inefficient zoning of residences vs. offices and workstations. Plus, the poor training, if any, as requirements for drivers’ licenses, which are circumvented with petty bribes, etc., etc.
About 40 years ago, the late former Cebu governor Lito “Promdi” Osmeña, in reply to my question as to how he would solve the traffic problem, said: “Two things. Move the national capital to Clark. And hire private contractors to build a highway around the Laguna Lake. The latter should not cost the government anything since the contractors could be authorized to develop properties alongside the reclaimed highway. And Clark has a first-class airport and deep harbors in nearby Subic.” That, I thought, was the strategic solution! I have not come across better ideas since then. Why the government has not made it happen, I do not know.
Cebu City traffic threatens to become like Metro Manila’s sooner rather than later. Fortunately, the provincial government is finally acting on Lito Osmeña’s plan to move the Cebu provincial capital to Balamban town in West Cebu, where only 20% of the population of Cebu resides. Western Cebu could certainly use the intervention as it has a great deal of poverty.
Perhaps the government entities involved in dealing with Metro Manila traffic should get together with the private sector and organize a planning group that will work out strategic plans, rather than continue with the endless petty ideas that have been brewing for decades, with no perceptible improvement.
There is too much government money already being spent in the National Capital Region (NCR). Perhaps if more of the billions are allocated to provincial development centers, fewer people will move to Manila; and more and more NCR residents will return or move to the provinces. If a survey is done, we will probably find that most of the residents of Metro Manila have a home province elsewhere. I was one of those until, thank heavens, I chose to go back to Cebu when I retired in 2006.
If Clark becomes the national capital, Central Luzon will flourish. If more money is invested in Mindanao, this issue of separating the region from the country will become irrelevant.
The current government’s proclaimed drive to bring in more foreign direct investments should encourage — with tax and other incentives — specific provincial locations for these investments. Ever since the Local Government Code of 1991 which President Corazon Aquino aggressively pushed for, many provinces have been able to enhance their attractiveness to investors. Local government executives and bureaucrats should be oriented on these incentives and learn to be investor friendly. In fact, investments in the Metro Manila area should be discouraged with taxes and other disincentives. More and more job opportunities at home will discourage probinsiyanos from moving to Metro Manila.
There is too much at stake with this grievous traffic problem. OMG, P3 billion per day! What that could do for the rest of the country! What that could do for our millions of poor and hungry families!
Teresa S. Abesamis is a former professor at the Asian Institute of Management and fellow of the Development Academy of the Philippines.