Gated communities

Truckers returned to work yesterday after working out a compromise with the Manila city government, so traffic moved slowly again in Manila’s Port Area.

It wasn’t as bad as in the past, but we’ve been warned to expect horrid traffic in Metro Manila in the next two years because of several infrastructure projects now being rushed.

Some quarters suspect the flurry of construction, many of which will not yet be finished by the time Manila hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit next year, aims to give P-Noy solid accomplishments he can tout to boost the chances of his “anointed” successor in 2016.

Whatever the reason, we’re in for traffic jams, with the promise that the construction work will mean less traffic when completed.

In the past decades, rapid population growth was not matched by a substantial expansion of the road network or improvement of mass transportation facilities.

National government offices, schools and the top universities remained concentrated in Manila and Quezon City. Residential communities sprouted around the schools and offices plus the international airport and Manila’s international container and domestic ports. 

Because mass transportation, instead of improving, became more inadequate, people who moved out of the traditional city centers bought cars, typically one for each member of the family capable of driving.

The result was more cars on a road network that barely expanded. With the government unable to build a modern railway to accommodate an ever-growing volume of cargo and commuters, Manila’s Port Area became increasingly congested with truck haulers.

Today there’s a reverse movement of sorts for people who relocated outside city centers. Exorbitant road tolls on major arteries on top of heavy traffic and high fuel costs are forcing people to move back to city centers at least during weekdays. It’s welcome news for the real estate business (though bad for those developing new areas), but it also means worse congestion in already overcrowded cities.

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Studies have shown that traffic jams cost billions in wasted fuel and productivity. With no easy answers, all possibilities should be explored to deal with the traffic problem.

I might be dead before a modern railway system is in place. The expansion of the overhead railway is several years away.

We must aim for measures that can be implemented quickly. The Manila government’s truck ban is one such measure. It’s good that a compromise has been reached and the trucks are out again, with less traffic.

Another proposal that has been kicked around for years is to open certain roads in gated villages to public traffic. Even one street per village will do, if it connects point A to point B in easing traffic. A village can still keep the rest of its streets closed to traffic, and issue vehicle stickers with corresponding fees.

Public interest should be the overriding concern here. The Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board, the Bureau of Internal Revenue and other concerned authorities should look into the collection of “entrance fees” and vehicle sticker fees in gated villages all over Metro Manila. Is this authorized, and who determines the rates? Are the funds audited, and what are they used for?

If private villages are fenced off and guards placed at the gates supposedly for security purposes, how safe are residents when any vehicle without a sticker can enter if the driver pays from P20 to P40?

In one village in San Juan, a wealthy homeowner opens and closes a street at his discretion. In Quezon City, a daily drive through adjacent villages can be costly for regular users.

In the independent republic of Dasmariñas Village in Makati, home of such illustrious denizens like Ruby Tuason, a resident walked from the gate to her house because the guards would not let in her car, which, being new, still had no sticker. The village can also serve as a refuge for scoundrels as long as they have vehicle stickers. An Indian businessman fleeing a hit-and-run homicide scene entered the village, and the Makati cops did not bother to pursue him.

Among the tenants the homeowners apparently want to evict are the foreign embassies that function as offices within the village. Even people who are not applying for visas and are simply visiting ambassadors living in the embassy residences are routinely harassed at the gates and told that the addresses do not exist.

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Many expats from advanced economies have told me they found it remarkable that there are so many gated villages in this country. It is another indication, they told me, of the yawning income gap.

In my childhood, the only gated village, as far as I can recall, was Forbes Park – an enclave designed from the start to keep the .001 percent of the population safely apart from the riffraff.

Other gated villages offering the same exclusivity, but priced for those of lesser wealth, eventually sprung around Forbes Park.

The Tsinoys moved out of crowded Binondo and built spacious homes in the gated villages of San Juan. Over in the cogon fields of Quezon City, the middle class settled in gated villages in the “projects” around the University of the Philippines, Ateneo and what at the time was called Maryknoll College.

Youthful residents of the “projects” were called “jeproks.” I’m not sure if the term was pejorative.

Roads spur development. When the South Superhighway was built, later followed by Sucat Road in Parañaque, it led to a real estate boom in Manila’s southern suburbs. The salt beds of Parañaque disappeared. Cogon land bought for 10 cents per square meter became the foundation of enormous family fortunes. Asia’s largest subdivision sprawled across Parañaque, Las Piñas and Muntinlupa.

Gated villages charge from a few hundred to several thousand pesos for each vehicle sticker, in addition to fees collected from delivery trucks. The stickers are good for one year. An assassin whose vehicle has no sticker can simply pay the entrance fee and proceed to his target.

The millions collected in some villages have led to serious fights among rival factions that sometimes reach the courts.

Barangays have jumped in with their own collections, which is probably why local governments have sat on proposals made years ago by the Metro Manila Development Authority to open certain village roads to public traffic, even if only to private light vehicles.

With the current traffic situation, the proposal merits serious consideration.