Is government moving, at last?

The problem with this country is that our leaders only start moving once something degenerates into a full blown crisis. Even very obvious problems, such as the long decried daily suffering of commuters, are allowed to fester.

Metro Manila’s daily traffic gridlock is too big to be ignored, yet they did. Worse, the man tasked to manage the problem has given up and of late, abandoned us as he goes around the country jump starting his campaign to be a senator.

Last Friday, when the INC paralyzed traffic movement, MMDA chairman Francis Tolentino was in Albay talking before a national conference of vice mayors. He was also there to turnover P20 million worth of traffic lights MMDA donated to Legaspi City.

Tolentino is really something else. He treats MMDA as if it is his private company. Those traffic lights may have been needed to alleviate traffic congestion in Metro Manila, but he “gives” those away to Legaspi City as if it was his to give. That came out of the MMDA budget meant to address Metro Manila concerns. That should be technical malversation.

The week before, he brought 60 MMDA traffic officers with him to Cebu to help manage traffic there supposedly because an APEC meeting was going on. The real purpose of his trip was to join the Liberal Party lovefest which P-Noy called to support the presidential bid of Mar Roxas. Those 60 people being paid by MMDA could have helped deal with our traffic problems instead of campaigning for Tolentino.

When confronted by reporters, Tolentino said there is nothing more he or anyone can do about Metro Manila traffic for the next 15 years. So, he gave up doing anything, and focused instead on running for the Senate. The least Tolentino could have done as the person responsible for the traffic problem was to commiserate with us by being here.

According to Tolentino, the latest statistics show the hopelessness of the situation. For every four vehicles sold, at least one goes to Metro Manila. He told my colleague Ichu Villanueva, 22,000 vehicles are being sold all over the country every month. Out of eight million motor vehicles registered nationwide, he said 2.4 million are in Metro Manila. Sadly, he pointed out, there are no new roads being built.

Ichu continues: “Trying to explain the MMDA predicament, Tolentino said the entire stretch from Aparri to Jolo would total 199,960 kilometers. Of this, he said the Metro Manila road network accounts for 5,035 kilometers, or about 2.5 percent. Now, put the 2.4 million motor vehicles together at one time, and you would get the picture.”

Those figures are probably correct. DPWH concentrated its feverish road building program outside of Metro Manila. Other than the usual weekend reblocking of EDSA and C5, I can’t think of a significant new road built by DPWH in Metro Manila during P-Noy’s watch. It would have helped if they built C6 as it would relieve C5 from a lot of truck traffic, but they didn’t.

Anyway, after my Monday column was published, I understand P-Noy called for an emergency meeting of some of his key officials. Now, at long last, our traffic problem has the attention of P-Noy. And, I am told, he wants visible action at once.

Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras was assigned by P-Noy to be on top of doing something about the traffic problem. But Rene and P-Noy hesitated on using the title, Traffic Czar. They wanted to save the faces of Tolentino and DOTC Sec Jun Abaya whose utter failure in their jobs led to this serious crisis.

I understand Rene only wants to be called “coordinator,” but I think a coordinator barely fits the bill. It almost invites the likes of Tolentino, Abaya and those self important bureaucrats at LTO and LTFRB, not to mention the mayors of Metro Manila cities to ignore him.

I was reassured,however, that Almendras carries the full authority of P-Noy and should be able to assert himself whenever needed. Almendras can only be ignored at their peril.

They have also contacted my good friend, Rene Santiago, to consult him on what could be done. Rene is an internationally recognized expert on transportation and traffic management consulted by foreign governments and the ADB, but ignored by ours. Rene is a UP Engineering graduate with a Masters degree from the Asian Institute of Technology.

Indeed, there seems to be an unfortunate allergy to brown skinned talent at DOTC. I heard they discourage Pinoy experts from bidding for projects unless they come with foreign partners. Or unless they are connected to DOTC officials, as in the case of that MRT 3 maintenance deal.

This Facebook post confirmed my suspicions about the anti-Filipino bias of DOTC:

“You cannot let the bourgeois and lawyers -- the secretaries of the executive departments -- solve this problem, because traffic and transportation management is not a legal problem but a scientific/ technical /mathematical problem. We have many scientists and engineers, many with PhDs, who are actually studying this problem and who might be able to offer solutions, better than the odd-even scheme recently proposed.

“Dr. Kardi Teknomo has a PhD in pedestrian engineering, and has specialized in movements of people on roads, corridors, inside buildings, etc. His wife has a PhD in transport engineering and traffic control.

“There are many researchers in the UP National Center for Transportation Studies who can propose better solutions than odd-even. A research group at Ateneo DISCS has a Waze-like solution to help motorists navigate through city traffic and avoid jams.

“We are unlike Singapore, who has hired Filipino scientists and makes use of their research in making political decisions. As long as we have this habit of hiring only the corrupt or corruptible, our beloved country is going nowhere.”

I also found out from Rene Santiago there are at least 20 Filipinos with PhDs in traffic and transportation management and double that number with masters degree. Many have migrated to Australia and elsewhere because their expertise is not being utilized here.

There was a time during the mid ’90s when the Japanese and Philippine governments invested in training Filipinos in traffic and transport management in Japan. Setting up that National Center for Transportation Studies at UP under the College of Engineering is part of the program.

But these are scientists who will not assert themselves if our officials prefer to hire foreign consultants or locals who are both corrupt and incompetent. This is such a tragic waste of resources specially because we have been suffering this traffic plague for so long while local expertise is available to address it and just waiting to be tapped.

Anyway, during that emergency meeting with P-Noy, it was decided the PNP Highway Patrol Group will be responsible for traffic law enforcement at EDSA. That was the recommendation of Ed Yap, the chairman of the transportation committee of the Management Association of the Philippines or MAP.

There are, however, negative reactions from motorists who fear there will be another layer of corruption on the road. The PNP Chief must be able to police his men very well or this order of the President will fall flat.

There was no mention in a Palace story of the need to reduce the number of buses in EDSA, a highly political undertaking. They must implement a strict bus lane and remove the boundary system too. Unless those things are done, bus drivers will continue to disrupt traffic flow as they bully their way to get passengers.

Another top level meeting was scheduled yesterday presided by Almendras and DTI Sec Greg Domingo, and the private sector stakeholders were invited. I have not been told of any outcome as I write this column.

I have been getting a number of suggestions from readers on how to deal with the traffic congestion. Here is one from Susan Friginal:

“We should recommend to the government to require business establishments to provide shuttle busses for their employees while infrastructure projects are still in the planning stage or are going on. Employees would like to ride in a shuttle bus instead of driving. It’s just unfortunate that public transportation is not reliable or unsafe or not enough.

“Imagine for one company with 100 employees riding in a shuttle bus… that’s 100 cars out of the road. We are doing that in Meralco but only for rank and file employees because supervisory employees are given car allowance.

“Meralco management should realize its convenient for the executives to be riding in a shuttle bus instead of very tiring driving in heavy traffic. They will be more productive.

“P-Noy’s suggestion of odd even is nothing new. People will just buy another car.”

Oh well… let us see if this time, government is serious about doing something. To see is to believe.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco