Opinion

Metro Manila needs federalism

BREAKTHROUGH - Elfren S. Cruz - The Philippine Star

September 4, 2016 | 12:00am

I listened to Transportation Secretary Art Tugade, during a recent MAP meeting, make a powerful case for giving the national government emergency powers that would allow his department to address the traffic crisis in Metro Manila.

According to him, one of his biggest problems is that the 17 cities and municipality in the Metro Manila region have different traffic laws and land use policies. It is obvious that this metropolitan region needs a single traffic enforcement system. He cited some examples.

While the national government, through MMDA, has control of EDSA, the streets leading to EDSA are under the control of the local governments. Streets turned into parking lots and basketball courts eventually cause traffic bottlenecks at critical intersections along EDSA and other major streets. The different LGUs also impose traffic laws without coordinating with other government units. For example, Makati has its own vehicle coding rules; and Pasig has launched its own odd and even scheme for reducing vehicular traffic.

All these local rules would be fine if Metro Manila residents lived, worked and socialized essentially within the political boundary of a single city or municipality. But this not the reality of today’s highly urbanized metropolitan life. Let me give actual examples.

Think of Albert who lives in Marikina and works in Makati. Every day, he must ride buses that cross several cities before arriving at his work destination. His children go to a school in Quezon City and his wife works in the Ortigas area in Pasig. For their family, going to Cubao or Megamall or Trinoma is a whole day excursion. The family life of Albert and his family is affected by traffic in Quezon City, Pasig and Makati; floods in Marikina and Caloocan. Albert actually spends more time in other cities than in his home in Marikina.

John is an executive living in Las Piñas and works in Makati. Every day he has to drive passing through either Mandaluyong or Parañaque. Then he has to visit clients in Pasig, San Juan and Muntinlupa. His children go to schools located in Manila; and, his wife teaches in a school in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig. Roland and his family live in Bacoor. He has to travel daily from Bacoor to Navotas where his job is located. He is worried about crime in Manila and Navotas because it is dark when he goes home from work; and, traffic bottlenecks in Baclaran, Paranaque that could result in his being late for work. These are the stories of the ordinary Metro Manilan.

The present political boundaries of the 17 cities and municipality of Metro Manila were drawn during the Spanish colonial era when places like Malabon and San Juan were villages far from the city of Manila. Marikina was a mountainous area; and the central business district of Makati was just a barrio.

More than two centuries later, urbanization, population growth, technological revolutions and demographic shifts have turned this whole geographic entity into a single metropolitan region. But the political boundaries have not changed; and the governance structure has remained the same as during the colonial era. It is inadequate and does not address present realities.

As I listened to Secretary Tugade, I must confess that I sympathized with his plight. There is a traffic crisis in Metro Manila. But is solving this traffic quagmire really the responsibility of the Department of Transportation or even of the national government? There is a growing traffic problem in Metro Cebu. Will this also be addressed by the national government? I am not aware of any major country in the world where traffic is the concern of the national government.

Metro Manila’s population is approximately 12 to 13% of the nation’s population. EDSA traffic is not the concern of the remaining 87% of the population. But, in their usual arrogance, Metro Manila believes the national government must assume responsibility for all regional issues.

The root cause, however, is that there is NO regional government with the legal and moral authority to enact and enforce metro-wide rules on issues like traffic, land use, pollution, waste management and public safety. Almost every major metropolitan region has a regional government. The list includes places like Tokyo, Seoul, London, New York, Jakarta, and Bangkok. There are, however, two major metropolitan governance structures. The first is a federal form where the regional government shares responsibility with the local governments for public services such as transportation and traffic, parks, water, sewage and economic development. The Tokyo Metropolitan government has just elected its first female governor together with an Assembly of 127 members. It administers 23 Special Wards with each one governed like an individual city. It also includes 26 other cities, five towns and eight special villages. Seoul Metropolitan government is highly centralized with one mayor and three vice mayors.

The Metro Manila government must be popularly elected in order to have legal and moral authority over the local governments. In the absence of a Metro Manila government, we will continue to have the anomalous situation where the national government will remain as the de facto regional government of Metro Manila.

It is time for federalism to be implemented in Metro Manila.