Heroine or villainess?

Poe has refused to budge. She also insists that such powers are unnecessary, as the solution to the monstrous EDSA traffic can be solved without the grant of emergency powers.

Traffic — and not only in EDSA — has become a nightmare for Metro Manilans and other cities in the Philippines, yet Sen. Grace Poe just plain rejects to have the emergency powers for the President passed. Insisting from well over three years ago to this day that the grant of such power — which is expected to be utilized by Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade to solve the maddening EDSA and other chokepoints in Metro Manilla — will only end up in corruption.

With the emergency powers, Tugade, as chairman of a traffic crisis management committee, or the traffic czar, will still be under the direct control and supervision of the President.

The Duterte administration has asked for emergency powers to enable key government officials to address the traffic situation, claiming such authority on paper could speed up the process of implementing the solutions.

Senate Bill 213 has been filed by Sen. Francis Tolentino granting such powers to Duterte. But Poe and her committee have refused to act on it, on the flimsy excuse of corruption rearing its ugly head with such powers in the hands of the Executive.

“This bill proposes to declare the existence of a national emergency in view of the traffic and congestion crisis in Metropolitan Manila, Metropolitan Cebu, and other highly urbanized cities… to authorize the President, for a limited period and subject to restrictions, to exercise powers necessary to effectively address the said national emergency,” Tolentino said.

Poe has refused to budge. She also insists that such powers are unnecessary, as the solution to the monstrous EDSA traffic can be solved without the grant of emergency powers.

One has to ask why other senators aren’t putting any pressure on Poe and her committee to start fleshing out the emergency power grant bill. Why not? Surely one voice in a committee — even when it is the negative voice of the chair — can be overturned. Poe is not the Senate. She is just one voice.

What Poe does not seem to realize is the fact that not only are there more cars and public buses, vans and virtually all types vehicles, including motorcycles, taking the roads, the nightmare that is EDSA and any other traffic-laden streets in Metro Manila cannot be solved as things stand today, because, logically, Sen. Poe, more roads, peripheral roads, expressways, skyways, bridges, metros, aboveground and underground, as well as other construction projects, must be built to ease and solve the traffic problem.

When new roads are built or widened, especially in urban areas, the right-of-way always gets in the way, apart from other laws and rules, which is one reason for delays in projects. This problem can be resolved through the grant of emergency powers. But if the fear of abuse and corruption is what stops the senator, then Poe can certainly file cases against such abuse of power and corruption — instead of her condemning Tugade and Duterte as guilty of corruption and abuse of power — and without any evidence at all.

There is a rise in suspicion that Poe has been making it ultra-difficult in getting a Senate measure on the emergency power grant to be enacted into law, as the House has twice passed its version of the measure for some vindictive reason.

Poe has been refusing to get the Senate version of the emergency power grant to Duterte, singing the same broken record of corruption arising in such an emergency power grant.

The senator does not seem to care that the estimated economic cost of the gridlock, in 2017 pegged at P3.5 billion, must be a lot more, due to the daily traffic in existence today. All she does is to claim that granting Duterte the emergency power opens the doors to corruption — even when she has absolutely zero evidence to back up her claims. And Poe certainly can’t point to Tugade being a corrupt official, as he has, to this day, a clean government record.

Yet Poe refuses to budge and insists on her claim of corruption that comes with emergency powers jarring lyrics. The senator must think that she is punishing Duterte for having crushed her dream for the presidency, and she obviously does not want to see him and Tugade succeed. What she does not seem to get into her stubborn head that while she continues to claim corruption even when there has been no emergency power grant, which makes her claim speculative and unproved, she is not just punishing Duterte but worse, Poe is punishing the Filipino public, leaving the commuters and private car drivers suffering long wasted hours to get to their destinations. Then there is also a waste of gas and even diesel fuel, with hotheads getting hotter, with such a monstrous daily traffic and on even any time of the day.

If Poe thinks that she is being seen by the public as the heroine of the EDSA traffic jams, she would be so terribly wrong. She may just end up being seen by the people as the villainess of EDSA.

And she would certainly deserve such a title.