Even before Mayor Vico Sotto was elected Mayor, a number of representations had been made by or on behalf of the RMC or Rizal Medical Center with the Pasig City officials to provide an “Emergency Opening” on Pasig Boulevard that will allow ambulances and vehicles with emergency cases particularly coming from Shaw Boulevard to turn left into the RMC driveway. By allowing this, any emergency vehicle, ambulance etc., will simply turn left and be in the hospital in 5 seconds. Various proposals and suggestions were offered but to the amazement of the hospital officials, traffic planners actually blockaded the middle of Pasig Boulevard effectively forcing ambulances and emergency cases to drive past the hospital and make a U-turn down the road. The reason I was told is that traffic managers did not want to create traffic and yet these “experts” or authorities have never done anything to stop or arrests the countless jeepneys that have created their own jeepney stop a few meters down that constantly causes traffic!
Annoying as it was, the drive past the hospital entrance was not yet a problem back then. But recently, this scheme has turned into a medical nightmare because the U-turn slot was moved further down and made worse by the current “beautification” or cladding of the flyover down on C5 that has taken months and remains unfinished! Based on the times I’ve driven through the area, you can be lying inside an ambulance fighting for your life right in front of the entrance and be stuck for 5 to 10 minutes just to make the U-turn. Given how Filipinos have learned to respect and give way to ambulances, why is it that the MMDA and the local traffic management office of Pasig find it difficult to understand that a hospital entrance especially where the emergency rooms are, should be accessible in the shortest quickest possible time. One proposal presented in the past was to place a weighted bar that a security guard can simply lift if an ambulance is approaching. The concrete barricade blocking an emergency access to a national hospital is utter madness. Please Mayor Vico: remove the barricade!
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If by chance Mayor Vico has time to read columns, may we request him to kindly sit down with whoever represents the DPWH in Pasig City to find out if they actually have a “Traffic Plan” for the Lawton – Santa Monica Bridge and when they are planning to share this state secret with residents and business owners of Barrio Kapitolyo, Pioneer and Shaw Boulevard? I recently spoke with an official of the MMDA and got the shock of my life when I learned that they have not received any such plan, they don’t know if the bridge will be one way or two way, what direction traffic will be going into and out of Barrio Kapitolyo and if the bridge will be “cars only”, “cars and motorcycles”, or will it be a free for all. The Traffic Plan is crucial in preparation of its impact on the traffic in the area, on Shaw Boulevard and on Pioneer Street.
The flow or direction, volume and mix of vehicles will also determine if all the commercial establishments along East Capitol and West Capitol Drive can continue to co-exist or should start relocating before they get run out of town for lack of parking, traffic and pollution. This is what many business owners suspect given how the TPMO of Pasig City conduct sweeps in the area in numbers. It is as if they were already doing mind conditioning for the people of Barrio Kapitolyo. Sorry but I have enough bad experience with sneaky, double talk, officials of the DPWH who shoved the Lawton-Santa Monica Bridge through our peaceful community instead of rerouting the bridge along the river and to Pasig Boulevard. They’ve even managed to convince the President that it’s a good deal because the Chinese government is doing it for free. Yeah! Wait until you discover that it’s the bridge to nowhere because every “exit point” sticks you in a small road, traffic lights and loops just to get to Ortigas. I hope Mayor Sotto manages to get a real logical traffic plan because if the bridge ends up creating a bigger traffic jam, the death of commerce and business and the devaluation of property values and taxes, all that will be the problem of City Hall. As a former President who hated out guts for opposing the bridge once said “Sama-sama na lahat tayo” or We’re all in this mess!
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Still about the Department of Poor Work and Holes, someone shared a photo of a huge hole somewhere along Ortigas near the CCF building where the DPWH did some remedial emergency action; they stuck a reflective orange plastic road barrier into the hole so vehicles won’t fall in it. This is the level and quality of emergency road repair in the Philippines! Instead of cordoning off or placing barriers around the hole, they drop one in. I guess it should give you an idea how you would look if your bike fell in! But let’s not stop with “an isolated case”, what about the many holes and unfinished road work or repair around Metro Manila where the standard protocol for safety is to cover excavations or holes with steel plates!!! The problem with this mentality and policy of the DPWH is that it allows the DPWH or their contractors to take their time to fix the problem or finish the job instead of doing it ASAP. Next time you see a “How they should not do it” example, please post it on Instagram or Facebook so we can put an end to this mediocre lazy way of repairs at the DPWH.
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