Crises

“Metro Manila is an urban center, and developments have kept it awake 24/7. Its people move all the time, the metro will never be without movement.

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo has been under fire of late for stating his observations after taking on a challenge to commute on his way to work in Malacañang last week.

The Palace mouthpiece was placed in a no-win situation, and accepting the challenge was just part of the draw.

He was game in enduring four jeepney rides, a failed try at hiring a tricycle which broke down even before it fired off, and was successful in flagging down a motorbike rider with an extra helmet available after the first was not ready with one.

He may have gotten extra help from traffic endorsers who flagged down the jeepneys for him, but the attention he got and the delays caused by the media who hunted and followed him for their coverage and photo opportunities still pulled his travel time to 15 minutes short of four hours before he touched base at the Palace.

Not bad. Panelo had expected the travel time to stretch that long.

The problem with him was communication, which is supposedly his strongest asset that led to his appointment to his spokesman’s post.

Panelo does not talk the language of the street. He was too soft and too respectful when he tried to address the issues asked of him by the media. He tried to present the transport and traffic problems in a candy box. That’s where he failed.

But he was right on the bull when he distinguished the difference between the traffic crisis (which he has for decades now) and the transport problem (which is not yet a crisis as claimed by some).

There is no transport crisis. We have to agree to that because that is a fact.

We are discussing a Metro Manila where various modes of public and private transportation are available. We do not lack for them. In fact, we have too plenty and too much that contribute to the gridlock we experience every day.

What we are short of now, and this government officials have admitted long ago, are train lines.

Former Sen. JV Ejercito, in a recent Daily Tribune interview, clearly said most of the country’s infrastructure have aged. It will take years before we can see the results of the ongoing construction projects aimed at addressing these issues, but Ejercito is confident that government is on the right tract, especially with the “Build, Build, Build” programs now being implemented.

The old North-South link of the Philippine National Railways (PNR) obviously needs further upgrade. It can only serve so many, like the MRT and the LRT systems that now await new lines sprouting out of Metro Manila and into its provincial fringes. They are happening, but we need to wait for years. These construction projects do not happen overnight.

Also, new highways are being built. We have to accept that constructing these, including those for new expressways, will take time even as they contribute to the daily traffic mess that we have to endure.

The rush hours are also different. The volume of commuters and cars on the roads could no longer be handled by the present systems.

But our experiences are not far different from the rush hours of say, New York and Tokyo, where trains also fill from end to end. Metro Manila is an urban center, and developments have kept it awake 24/7. Its people move all the time, the metro will never be without movement.

Development, however, needs to spread out of the cities. Economic power should be given to those in the provinces so that the lure of the Big City would no longer be there.

There is no one solution to these crises, if that’s what we would want them called. Our leaders, past and present, have done balancing acts to keep our centers from exploding.

We are feeling the changes, but these are good only until the new challenges come.