PH 'transport science' is restricting mass transport

MARLEN RONQUILLO

EVERY so often, the convoys of powerful and wealthy Filipinos are caught encroaching on the bus-only EDSA busway. Those apprehended and ticketed, except for a few, do not even man up on their transgressions, placing the blame on their “irresponsible” drivers and factotums. After paying a negligible fine and some social media skewering, such assaults on a space solely for mass transport are quickly forgotten. No one takes mobility and transport issues seriously in this country. I am tempted to add “godforsaken country.”

In a First World country like Singapore, the convoy of the prime minister — and this is the convoy of the head of government — gives way to public utility buses under all circumstances. Mass carriers are guaranteed unhampered use of public roads because they are identified with efficiency. The rights of mass carriers in Singapore are almost inviolable. On road use, this is the ironclad policy: zero private cars, if possible, to allow the free movement of buses and other mass carriers. There is a joke about Singapore, and it goes like this: It is easier to get a second wife than acquire a secondhand car because acquiring a secondhand car, or any vehicle for that matter, involves so many requirements and financial impositions.

In the Philippine context, it is the opposite. Our tortured, bizarre version of transport science anchors mobility on private cars with an average load of one and one-half passengers per trip. The twin of that car-centric transport policy is to restrict the mass carriers, which, in the absence of an efficient rail system, are the PUBs or public utility buses. The metropolitan buses are confined to the busway along EDSA and operate under heavy restrictions on the non-EDSA routes.

But the brunt of the punitive, pro-car policies of our transport mandarins is being imposed on provincial bus operators.

Provincial buses, which do not even make up 3 percent of the vehicles that used to run on EDSA, are no longer allowed on EDSA despite the need to ferry our OFWs, our modern-day heroes, to the DMW offices in the Ortigas area for documentation, certification, clearances etc. They are disallowed on EDSA despite the need to hasten the mobility of small traders that move assorted goods into Metro Manila from the neighboring provinces. And the need to move BPO workers who commute daily between their Metro Manila offices near or along EDSA and their provincial residences.

The OFWs and the BPOs contribute more than $70 billion to the national economy per year, and the nation often pays tribute to their heroic contributions. Yet, by restricting the provincial buses and banning them from EDSA, the national government directly imposes mobility burdens on both the OFWs and the BPO workers.

Not too many people know that provincial buses can only get to their terminals in Cubao by using circuitous secondary routes, which are a few meters from EDSA. They use those same circuitous routes to make the return trips to the provinces. And we all know that it is the commuters, the voiceless and faceless promdis, who suffer from these restrictive policies.

Not too many people know that the State, via MMDA, had asked the courts for a permanent ban on the entry of provincial buses into Metro Manila before the coronavirus epidemic. A Quezon City regional trial court found out that the permanent ban sought did not have a single element of “public good” and rejected the ban. But then, Covid-19 rudely interrupted. And during the Covid emergency, the Land Transport Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) used the government’s emergency power to carry out its original plan, which was to ban all Luzon buses from entering Metro Manila.

Under the cover of Covid emergency powers, the LTFRB started cutting and shortening bus routes to force the provincial buses operating in North and Central Luzon areas to end their usual Metro Manila trips at a private terminal inside the Philippine Sports Arena (PSA) compound in Bulacan. Those from Southern Tagalog, Bicol, the Visayas and Mindanao ended their trips to Manila at a mall in Laguna.

From a health and Covid precaution perspective, that made no sense. At the private terminals of the bus companies in Metro Manila, triages, anti-Covid units, testing centers and other Covid containment efforts can be set up within a controlled, manageable environment. Rules can be strictly enforced. Bus trips can be limited, with spaced intervals to guarantee the full implementation of the health protocols. If anything goes wrong, the bus company can be held accountable because that means a violation of its franchise commitment under the Public Service Code.

The conditions at the PSA terminal in Bocaue and the mall terminal in Laguna differed. Multiple bus companies loaded and unloaded passengers there without any oversight. The mass convergence at the common terminals was the perfect formula for spreading Covid but the LTFRB would not even consider the health reasons. It saw the Covid emergency as the perfect opportunity to ban the provincial buses from entering Metro Manila and giddily invoked that emergency.

As the Bard said, all bad plans end badly, and that, precisely, was the fate of the efforts to ban the provincial buses from entering their Metro Manila terminals and promote the PSA in Bulacan as a transport hub. Bus riders skipped the buses that ended their trips at the PSA and the Laguna mall and opted for those colorum vans that offered “door-to-door” trips. The market (bus riders) spoke and rejected the mass terminals being forced by the LTFRB on the bus companies and the riding public. In April 2022, the court ruled that the LTFRB’s experiment in extreme cruelty was over, and provincial buses could now enter their terminals in Metro Manila but through routes that skipped EDSA.

Our country’s version of transport science is probably the most tortured and bizarre in the world. It prefers private cars over mass carriers. If you look at the broader world, you will find that in the great German cities associated with iconic cars, like Munich and Stuttgart, restrictions are imposed on car ownership and use, not on buses and other forms of mass transport.

Barcelona, Spain, is leading Europe in banning cars from city centers. Incentives are given to local cities and towns to ban cars and free the roads for walking, biking and mass transport.

“Only in the Philippines,” we often say. And that outlier status indeed breeds transport and traffic management policies that run counter to transport data and transport science and fit for the road and traffic conditions in the lower half of the 20th century.