Everybody’s an expert

I found the classic answer why we will never solve our traffic woes.

For almost a year now I have complained to our Barangay Captain Noel Pajara about the open muffler tricycles that operate in Barrio Kapitolyo as early as 4 a.m. Unlike rich politicians, I don’t sleep in an air-conditioned room so the loud roar of tricycles wakes us up. Sadly our Barangay Captain claims that they have been stripped of the authority to arrest or issue traffic tickets and only Pasig City Hall can do it.

Last week I saw the TORO boys who are from Tricycle Operators Regulatory Office and appealed to them to flag down the more than 50 units with open muffler tricycles. They said apologetically that they only go after colorum because the other violations are under TPMO or Traffic and Parking Management Office boys who only operate on the main roads and never inside our highly commercialize Barrio Kapitolyo. In other words none of the violators will ever be arrested because the LTO gave up jurisdiction to City Hall who gave it to TPMO but who won’t go inside the Barangay, which in turn has no power to arrests. I might add that another factor leading to no arrest is that all of the people with the power to arrest belong to the same class, living in the same “poor community” so they never pick on each other!

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When it comes to traffic everybody has an opinion and lately everybody seems to be an expert, especially some government officials!

Consider for instance how the Department of Environment and Natural Resources makes light of the problem by unilaterally going after vehicles that are 15 years or older and assuming that would solve the problem of traffic and pollution. Then there is the former councilor of Quezon City who gets himself appointed to the Board of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board allegedly via an endorsement from a Congress leader. LTFRB Board member Ariel Inton pops out of nowhere and declares that private vehicles should be “removed” from EDSA during rush hour and give way to the buses.

However, all these crazy suggestions are the perfect ingredients to the saying: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I might add that hell is full of confused people who never quite understood what they were supposed to do in life. If there is anything I have learned in the last month or so, it is the undeniable fact that many government officials badly need an easy to read “job description” and a priority list of what they should attend to first and what they should be doing last.

Instead of mouthing off poorly studied ideas, officials like Inton should spend some time being a commuter like I try from time to time. I used to be able to ride the LRT and MRT with confidence but when the P-Noy Misadministration took office, riding mass transit has been a roll of the dice on any given day, IF you can actually last the test of patience just to get into a train!

The only cabs I can ride nowadays with certainty of getting one is by calling for one from Basic Taxi and only if I’m willing to pay P400 for sure pick-up and P550 to go to the airport or take a hotel taxi. On the Friday that Typhoon Mario hit I found myself painfully walking around Makati Avenue limping with my crutch trying to hail a cab. Fifteen taxis drove past not even bothering to ask. After an hour, I gave up and called my wife in Pasig to pick me up. Since that faithful day, I have stopped relying on cabs on the fly and take my car instead. Now Mr. Inton would want to deprive the elderly, the women with children, People With Disabilities and those of us who need to move around to do our work just so he and the LTFRB can bake sweet bread with the bus operators?

I don’t know if there’s a connection and if it’s true but a former DOTC insider has suggested that Mr. Inton is being lined up as the replacement of the current LTFRB Chairman Winston Ginez who is reportedly on his way to the Comelec.

The DENR and people like Mr. Inton should focus on their core competency and responsibility instead of getting involved with the traffic and road conditions and leave that to the department or agencies whose priority it is. In addition, the DENR and LTFRB officials should first consider all sides before making controversial statements that would further make government agencies look dictatorial, confiscatory or simply idiotic. It seems to me that in their rush to shoot their mouths off, they forgot that people who have vehicles 15 years or older have submitted their vehicles to the testing standards required by law and the LTO. The same officials may have also forgotten that people pay a lot of money for testing, insurance or registration. They may have failed to notice that these car owners have paid taxes for road use, clean air, insurance and documents!

If people in the DENR and the LTFRB want to help, perhaps it would be better if they get off their butts, keep their mouths shut, get out of their air conditioned cars and offices and go through the pain of their customers and constituents not those of their partners or stakeholders with vested interest. Buses continue to block EDSA, jeepneys continue to block roads and pollute the air, tricycles are unregulated and are already operating on main roads which they are not suppose to be doing while people at the DENR and the LTFRB are doing their best to disenfranchise taxpayers.