Nowhere to go

Last Thursday night, a frequent visitor to Manila described to me the faces of long lines of people waiting for buses and other forms of transport. He said he had never seen the sadness, the despair, the anger and resentment of thousands of people waiting to go home from a long day at work. It dawned upon him that the reputation of Filipinos as one of the “happiest people in the world” is fast becoming a thing of the past. And it’s true – the most frequent complaint you hear nowadays is about angry people commuting for an average of two hours for a distance that could easily be traversed in 20 to 30 minutes.

A study conducted by the National Economic Development Authority shows it will take 15 years and $65 billion-plus to turn this gargantuan traffic nightmare into a “dream” situation. Butch Abad may be right that years of neglect have caused the traffic mess to get worse, but all the warning signs were there for decades. Let’s face it, in the five years that this administration has been in power, the general consensus and perception is that not much had been done to address the worsening situation. In the last five years, a lot of infrastructure projects have either been put on hold, delayed or subjected to litigation because of whimsical and arbitrary changes made by the DOTC, putting a damper on the enthusiasm of investors to work with the government on big-ticket infrastructure projects.

In fairness however, the government has been trying to address the situation but admittedly, it’s been mostly patchwork, and they have yet to come out with a long-term solution to this major problem that will surely become a hot election issue in May 2016. Ordinary individuals and major business groups agree that this horrendous traffic mess is stifling the economy – costing everyone a lot of money in terms of lost business and productivity, not to mention unnecessary health expenses.

God help us – if we cannot even solve the effects of a sudden heavy downpour, how much more so when a major catastrophe like a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hits Metro Manila? The government cannot afford to be reactive, neither can it keep asking people to exercise more patience because the growing anger and frustration is like a powder keg that can explode at any given time. Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the ordinary public commuter who goes through traffic hell every single day – and see if we can still afford to be patient. There is only so much aggravation that even the most tolerant or long-suffering of Pinoys can take.

One only has to look at the faces of the people that display a combination of weariness and resignation, giving off an underlying sense of anger. We can see – as the late STAR columnist Teddy Benigno had been predicting for years  – a seething social volcano that can erupt anytime. The next president of this country had better have solutions with no excuses for the many problems we face today. The ticking social bomb passed on from one president to another may just explode on the next one.

Last Thursday, I listened to Camarines Sur 3rd District Congresswoman Leni Robredo who was a guest speaker at the Rotary. She strikes me as an extremely smart woman who obviously has a bright future in politics. Just like her husband, she has that common touch that makes people gravitate to her, comfortable in the fact that she is “ordinary” like the rest of many other Filipinos. She spoke eloquently, and has a clear vision of what she wants to accomplish for her constituents, taking stock of her late husband’s experience as mayor of Naga City which he turned into what she called a “maogmang lugar” – a happy place where people had a local government that was characterized by “transparency, accountability and people empowerment.”

Camarines Sur continues to be listed as one of the poorest provinces in the Bicol region, with Siruma in the 3rd District as the poorest municipality according to a recent report by the National Statistical Coordinating Board. Leni Robredo recounted visiting a school in a remote area near Naga City where a classroom had only nine chairs for the 30 students. The pupils had to take turns sitting on the chair, with nine taking the seats while the rest would stand, until the others’ turn to sit down came.

That situation is a vivid description of the kind of poverty that continues to affect many Filipinos, and how the resources of government have not been able to reach those who need them the most. While there has been a clamor for Congresswoman Robredo to run for vice president with groups launching a signature campaign, she was straightforward in saying she is not ready for higher office because of her commitment to her constituents. For that alone, I admire her candor.

The next president of this country will be inheriting so many problems both on the foreign and domestic fronts. The traffic problem alone is going to be a major issue and the situation is not just confined to Metro Manila but is also reflected in other urban areas like Cebu, where residents are complaining that the traffic mess is causing the economic stagnation of the “Queen City of the South.”

2016 is going to be another crucial year for Filipinos in choosing the next president. We need a competent leader with integrity and a vision for the future. We can expect more traffic and more floods – this county has nowhere else to go – and either we all literally sink or swim.

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