Air crisis

We do not need to be told that air quality in the metropolitan area is bad. We find that out each time we clean our noses.

Still, we were shocked the other day. From the vantage point of the Ayala Greenfields golf course on the side of Mt. Makiling, we looked out at the metropolis and found it shrouded by a dark cloud. For a moment, we debated over whether a massive storm cloud was coming our way. Then we realized it was smog, hanging menacingly over the 12 million poor souls who live and work in one of the dirtiest cities in the world.

It is getting worse by the day, much faster than we care to acknowledge. The sooner we call this air quality crisis, the better our chances of surviving.

By the way, November is Clean Air Month in this country by the grace of Proclamation 1109 issued in 1997. I do not recall government doing anything to celebrate this event. No new policies to tighten regulations and force changes; not even a perfunctory statement from the President.

In 2009, the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau reported that Total Suspended Air Particulates (TSP) stood at 134 micrograms (ug) per normal cubic meter (Ncm). That is significantly above the 90 ug/Ncm safe level.

That is not even the truly alarming thing. By the first half of 2010, the TSP count for the NCR rose dramatically to 163 ug/Ncm.

Air pollution is concentrated along the stretch of Edsa. As far back as two years ago, the TSP count for the Edsa stretch registered at 282 ug/Ncm (!). Imagine what that count might be today, with the sudden surge of buses plying that route.

Over 80 percent of air pollution in the metropolis is caused by vehicular emissions. The remaining 20 percent is accounted for by everything else from industrial to household pollution.

The World Bank’s Country Environmental Analysis (CEA) was released a few weeks ago. It pointed out quite a number of things our policymakers might be aware of but chose to do nothing about.

Specifically: the CEA pointed out that ideal number of buses plying the Edsa route is 1,600. Today, for some insane reason, 7,000 buses are playing that route. Many analysts suspect that corruption explains why so many franchises were issued despite the chronic overload characterizing this route.

Whenever something goes wrong, President Aquino’s mantra is: heads will roll. None ever does, of course, with the exception of Enteng Romano who chose political hara-kiri to save his bosses. The millions trapped in the streets for hours during last Monday’s mammoth gridlock would sure want to lynch a score of officials, principally from the LTFRB and the MMDA.

The same WB study reports that 1.5 million Filipinos are afflicted with respiratory illnesses directly caused by outdoor air pollution (OAP). These illnesses cost the economy about P950 million each year. Productivity losses, including income and time lost due to OPA-related diseases account for P502 million.

The WB study recommends: 1) Improving vehicle inspection and maintenance programs; 2) Shifting from 2-stroke to 4-stroke tricycles; 3) Introduction of cleaner fuels; 4) Installation of pollution control devices; and, 5) Increasing investments in mass transport systems.

The two major sources of rapidly deteriorating air quality in the metropolis are buses and tricycles. Both culprits are the least regulated, however. Where I live, hundreds of tricycles cue up for hours waiting for passengers. There is clearly gross oversupply of them and no one wants to do anything about it.

The problem were the buses we saw the other week. Any hint of improvement in regulation is met by a virtual strike. Not only have so much more franchises been issued, little has been done to curb the problem of colorum buses.

A few years ago, Macau got totally fed up with the poison spewed by buses. In one fell swoop, the Macau government replaced all diesel buses with new one powered by compressed natural gas (CNG). Credit that to political will.

We have, for years, been trying to do what Macau did for just one road: Edsa. The effort, however, has been frustrated by the bus operators who would rather make money from the cheap used buses (many from those swept of the roads in Macau).

Given that the single most important concentrated source of air pollution in the metropolis is Edsa, government ought to finally demonstrate some political will. Cancel all the bus franchises on Edsa and allow only CNG-powered buses on the route.

Unless an immovable deadline is set for this, the oil companies will not set up CNG stations along Edsa. In turn, the bus operators will cite the absence of these stations as an excuse to maintain the deadly status quo on this perpetually clogged road.

I test-drove a CNG-powered bus in Guangzhou some years back, part of the effort to get all parties involved in shifting Edsa buses to the cleaner fuel. My Chinese hosts were nearly floored to learn we had to deal with about 80 separate bus companies plying only one route. The oil company that was supposed to supply the CNG stations never did so because there was no indication at all government was prepared to deal with the bus companies decisively.

To be fair, the DENR recently issued an order requiring all vehicles in the metropolis to be compliant with Euro 4 emission limits by January 1, 2016 — provided the proper fuel was available. There lies the loophole that casts doubt on the entire enterprise. We might end up with the same chicken-and-egg problem that hounded the shift to CNG powered buses on Edsa: fuel companies will not deliver Euro 4 compliant fuels unless it is clear there is political will behind this order.

Air quality is deteriorating rapidly in the metropolitan area. Either we see some incredible political will being exercises or we choke to death. No part of the city has safe air as it is.