Crawling along

Early yesterday afternoon, a non-rush hour, it took me about 50 minutes to reach EDSA from Santolan or Bonny Serrano along the length of Camp Aguinaldo – a distance of about a kilometer.

We’ve been told by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) that EDSA traffic has improved by increments of several minutes every few weeks or so. Has anyone checked how much of that traffic moved to side streets? Those MMDA folks must be using their creative imagination to report something positive to President Duterte.

MMDA officials shouldn’t worry too much about their job security if they tell the truth about the traffic mess. Du30 is completely preoccupied with defending his policy of mass extermination and ensuring that his neo-Nazi shock troops stay out of jail and even get promoted for murder well done.

Still focused on his home city of Davao, this president also can’t seem to care much about livability in Metro Manila, even if it is home to more than a tenth of the nation’s population.

Traffic gridlocks are back in Manila’s Port Area and have spread outside the National Capital Region. Last Saturday afternoon, it took an hour to negotiate the half-kilometer stretch leading to SM Bacoor in Cavite. There was no major mall sale. Members of the BTMO – that’s the Bacoor Traffic Management Office under Mayor Lani Mercado – simply couldn’t tell a hole in the ground from a vital body orifice. They made sure traffic flowed unimpeded all right – inside the mall, not the streets.

I’ve heard complaints of similar situations in several areas in Metro Manila.

Surely there are ways of improving such situations ASAP, without waiting for Congress to approve emergency powers for President Duterte.

We all know there is no quick fix to the traffic mess in Metro Manila. But efficient management can improve traffic flow.

Candidate Du30 did not promise to end the traffic mess. But with his track record in Davao, surely there were voters who thought he could do much better than daang sarado in untangling Manila’s traffic jams.

* * *

Merely banning barangay officials from closing streets in crowded areas in urban centers for their parties can go a long way in keeping traffic moving. Du30 should try driving around incognito to see how prevalent this problem is in Metro Manila.

Last Tuesday afternoon, for example, officials of Barangay Carmona in Makati (the captain is Joselito Salvador) closed the street beside their office to set up a stage for a gathering, as traffic crawled around the area.

I’ve seen narrow, heavily used side streets in the city of Manila closed and motorists made to take circuitous detours because barangay officials were having a gift-giving event.

Like politicians occupying higher office, too many barangay officials have blurred the line between public and personal property, violating laws and local ordinances and abusing power.

With Du30 having already struck terror in the hearts of barangay personnel engaged in the illegal drug trade, he has a good chance of making the village officials shape up and become true servants of the people.

* * *

Frustration over such abuses has to be among the reasons for the muted protests against the killings of barangay officials linked to the drug trade.

Du30 has said many of the 5,000 public servants in his narco list are barangay personnel. Yesterday he repeated that even if he were given carte blanche to eliminate all the drug offenders, “I’d run out of bullets and time to kill all of them.”

Obviously, killing people isn’t going to solve the traffic mess. But with fear already instilled, Du30 has a good chance of imposing discipline among barangay officials. He should not waste his chance.

* * *

Opening a few roads in some gated villages can also ease traffic flow. We have seen the benefits of such moves in several private villages. The government is also opening streets in certain state-owned properties to vehicular traffic.

Du30 should tell his congressional allies to review the laws governing private subdivisions. A number of those laws were crafted long before the entity called Metro Manila was created, when EDSA was known as Highway 54, when there was still no Sucat Road and even before the groundbreaking for the South and North Luzon Expressways.

In those days, a few families bought vast tracts of seemingly useless cogon land for as low as 10 cents per square meter in Quezon City, Makati, Parañaque and Las Piñas. Some of the properties were later developed for commercial purposes; others became the sites for gated bedroom communities or housing projects.

Because of what at the time were the remote locations of the projects, basic public services were inadequate. The housing developers and homeowners took it upon themselves to handle certain community services such as security, sanitation, beautification and even water supply.

The laws, however, should allow the government, including local units, to take over when public interest requires it, or when neither the developer nor the homeowners’ association can handle the services as efficiently as the government.

Some of the crummiest streets in the country, for example, can be found in gated private subdivisions in Las Piñas. The home turf of Du30’s secretary of public works and highways should be a model in quality road networks. But the local government can only maintain city roads and those that are part of its so-called friendship route.

Property developers and homeowners’ associations, which collect fees for vehicle stickers aside from annual dues, refuse to turn over road maintenance and general security to the city government, even if the subdivision streets look like the surface of the moon, and even if burglaries, drug deals and other crimes are committed within the gated villages.

This sorry situation is a disservice to the public, especially those who pay not only VAT on almost every product and service but also real estate taxes and other fees to the local government.

Among the basic services should be better traffic management. President Duterte need not wait for emergency powers to quickly make a difference in this area.