‘Harebrained’

My friend was fit to be tied and about ready to demand a Senate inquiry or file a case at the Supreme Court when she got wind of the MMDA’s expanded number coding scheme subjecting vehicles to two coding days a week by banning four numbers per day instead of the current two per day – vehicles with plates ending in 1-2-3-4 will be off the streets on Mondays, 5-6-7-8 on Tuesdays, 9-0-1-2 on Wednesdays, 3-4-5-6 on Thursday and 7-8-9-0 on Fridays instead of 1-2 on Mondays and so on that is in effect at present. No amount of assurance that it is only a proposal and will not be implemented yet could calm her down. She wanted to stage protests, complain to whichever authority had influence over the MMDA to stop this “totally harebrained idea” from ever being implemented.

Fortunately, she has since left the country to attend to some family matters, because if she was in town she’d be absolutely apoplectic at the MMDA’s new idea – equally harebrained – of not allowing vehicles with only a driver from going on EDSA, ostensibly to encourage car-pooling. This is probably just a few notches lower on the harebrained scale than the idea of making EDSA a one-way thoroughfare, this reportedly upon the suggestion of a congressman.

As of this writing, any new traffic scheme will for now not be implemented, as MMDA admitted that putting a new scheme in place during the Christmas rush “might result in more trouble.” A ray of sanity!

I know the guy – who has gone from soldier to coup plotter to Customs official to senatorial candidate and now to supposedly running the metropolis – is desperate to solve or at least ease the traffic problem in Metro Manila. May I assure him that we’re all just as desperate, as we endure hours-long commutes or drives in city streets that most of the time look more like parking lots, with vehicles at a standstill or merely crawling along. But the three schemes the MMDA is proposing will only make it worse for the greater majority.

The expanded number coding scheme will make car dealers very happy, since the rich will just go out and buy new cars to get around the two-day coding. But what is the one-car or two-car family to do? The kids have to go to school, father and/or mother have to go to work every day, Monday to Friday. Families have managed to adjust to coding one day a week; it is very insensitive to punish them for not having the extra money to go out and buy another car.

It’s beyond the mandate of the MMDA, but the public transport system has to be rationalized, improved and made efficient so that people won’t have to drive to get anywhere. Our previous transport officials were total screwballs so we have a flop of a rail system, but it’s been a year and a half with a supposed brilliant secretary and the trains still break down daily and buses and jeeps still run roughshod on our streets. Instead of imposing new taxes and thinking up harebrained schemes to punish hapless citizens, can government agencies please just address the basic problems through practical, realistic and do-able solutions.