The joy of walking (and why making Metro Manila a walkable metropolis is true democracy)

MANILA, Philippines – Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow. 

— Henry David Thoreau

Thoughts come clearly while one walks. 

— Thomas Mann

If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish. 

— Charles Dickens

Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas.  — J.K. Rowling

It is sad that perhaps due to our many politicians being addicted to their fancy cars or just their utter lack of concern for the need for better mass transport systems like more trains, not many people in our Philippine society appreciate the joys of walking. I believe walking is not only good for the heart as our doctors would advise, but it’s also good for our spirit and the intellect as humans, very good too for overall national physical and economic health, and for true democracy!

In recent weeks, this writer has discovered a secret for overcoming the perennial traffic jams of Metro Manila that can match the exploits of my childhood heroes Superman or Spider-Man.

I learned that I could walk to my several meetings all over Makati or Ortigas by leaving the car and driver behind in my Quezon City office. How? For example, I could walk and ride the Mass Rail Transit or MRT at 7 p.m. from the GMA station in Quezon City during rush hour and reach my dinner meeting schedule of 7:30 p.m. at Greenbelt 5 in Makati City (instead of a half hour or one hour late!), and I was extremely delighted to discover that the MRT amazingly connects directly via covered walkways from its Ayala station to the air-conditioned SM mall, to Glorietta mall, to Landmark department store all the way to Greenbelt 5! The total cost? Only P12.

Traveling across Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong or China cities like Shanghai or Beijing, I love to escape from the tour groups for days and just spend hours walking and using their subways to explore the cities.

With patience for and love of walking to and from the MRT or Light Rail Transit (LRT) lines, it’s possible to go to three or more meetings in one whole afternoon without being late. During one of my occasional MRT rides (buy the P100 card so no need to line up to pay for every ride), I realized that our leaders and government can make substantive and real socio-economic and even cultural changes in Philippine society by encouraging more walking. Why?

• To encourage walking, we’d need to expand our affordable mass transport system extensively to all corners of the metropolis, thus having more trains link our cities.

• We need to beautify our streets, walkways and sidewalks (plant more trees and flowers everywhere, even along the overpasses!).

• We’d have to solve flood problems by decisively dredging and rebuilding key urban areas.

• To encourage everyone to walk, we need better peace and order, so our police should be given higher salaries and benefits, more training and better selection of recruits.

• To encourage more walking and riding mass transit trains, we have to educate the public and school kids on discipline of lining up and courtesy such as giving our seats to women or to elderly people, etc.

Walk more for fewer squatters, less air pollution, less oil imports

Among the many other socio-economic benefits of encouraging walking and more trains include:

• Solving squatter problem. With more pedestrian-friendly walkways, sidewalks and mass transport systems that could link all corners of Metro Manila (like for example traveling Tondo to The Fort in only half an hour) and expanding all that MRT and LRT lines to nearby provinces like Laguna, Bulacan, Batangas, Cavite, Pampanga, Rizal and other rural areas, we can therefore achieve economic democracy by decongesting our overcrowded cities. With better walkways and train lines, we can solve the public problem of unaffordable or too high home prices!

With better walking options and sensible mass transport systems, millions of ordinary people no longer would have to fight the police and the government to illegally stay in uninhabitable squatter colonies or slums in order to reach their urban work places every morning at 8 or 9 a.m.; they would no longer need to commute for two or more hours daily in jeepneys stuck in traffic jams! Wasn’t that the cry of a harried housewife from Agham Road in Quezon City last Sept. 23 on TV: that their government relocation site is so far from their jobs? We shouldn’t be like India with hundreds of millions of poor, homeless people, while overcrowded cities like Mumbai have the world’s most expensive realty prices!

• Lessening air pollution and waste of energy. With more walking and more trains, we’ll cut down drastically on air pollution with less reliance on gasoline or diesel-run cars and vehicles. How much cleaner would our air be? How much savings on our foreign exchange from less oil imports? Taking this a step further, we should build bike lanes too, not just walkways.

• Building more walkways and efficient trains is economic stimulus. Instead of wasting taxpayers’ money on so many harebrained ideas and on graft, I urge government to spend billions in expanding not only the MRT and LRT lines, but to build more covered walkways connecting every part of Metro Manila, to also ensure that all streets and thoroughfares have walkable sidewalks. The additional public works expenditures would become a huge stimulus for the Philippine economy that would also have a continuous and long-term pragmatic impact on overall productivity! One secret to China’s “economic miracle” is their pouring billions of dollars into modern infrastructures like subways and high-speed trains; we should, too.

• Build walkways for the blind and disabled. Another thing we should emulate are China’s streets and lanes for the blind and disabled; they even build lanes in our sidewalks or streets with Braille-like designs to guide blind people as they walk.

• Walking will promote national fitness. If I were president of this our republic or a celebrity like Manny Pacquiao or Kris Aquino, one thing I would encourage on a massive and national scale is walking. I love walking! It is very healthy not only for the body, but also for the mind and the spirit. Young or old, healthy or not too fit, rich or poor, walking is ideal for everyone. I have a theory that unlike horses with their incredibly strong legs, we humans are naturally built more for walking than for sprinting or running.

One of the best and physically safest ways to exercise for people of all ages is brisk walking, which I do every day for a minimum of 30 minutes and three kilometers on the treadmill in the gym, so my recent discovery of the MRT and Light Rail Transit (LRT) systems and the various covered walkways is a joy for me.

A young and pretty former sales executive of New World Hotel Makati once told me: “Most Filipinos don’t like to walk, unlike our tourists from countries like Germany or Hong Kong who love to walk. My former German boss at the hotel would rather walk all the way to the other end of Ayala Avenue, while we the local staff prefer to ride the hotel vehicle to our sales call.”

I don’t think we can blame many people if they don’t like to walk in our metropolis due to the conditions of our streets and sidewalks now. We should initiate and make massive reforms, invest and make Metro Manila a walkable city! Let us encourage everyone to discover the joys of walking. We would have true democracy if all citizens could walk our streets in peace and ride cheap trains, alongside corporate executives in Barong Tagalog or beside political leaders!

This writer challenges our leaders to walk the talk of their pro-people rhetoric by promoting pro-people and pro-walking pedestrian sidewalks, streets and fast trains in our metropolis. To rephrase an old Marcos era slogan that I read in history textbooks as a kid, “Sa Ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan,” I propose this new slogan: “Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, paglalakad ang kailangan!”

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