Must transportation

It was raining on my way to a research conference in the University of the Philippines early today. But although it was a cold and very windy morning, the Metro Rail Transit’s (MRT) air conditioning was on high. Ironically, on my way home this warm and humid afternoon, MRT’s air conditioning was out. The experience felt like I was a sardine taken from cold storage and then heated in an oven.

The MRT has become the fastest and cheapest way to get from one point to another along Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue, Metro Manila’s main thoroughfare. Standard bus fare, at eight pesos (roughly 17 American cents), used to be cheaper, but soaring oil prices these last few months has forced many passengers to take the train instead (which charges only 10 to 15 pesos or approximately 21 to 32 American cents).

Although congested MRT trains aren’t a sudden phenomenon. When I was still in college, it was already difficult to ride the train during peak hours; back then, most people took the train to save travel time. But MRT congestion has now become a given. Even people working in corporate offices, wearing long-sleeved shirts, sometimes even with coats or blazers on, have migrated from riding cabs to taking the train. To spend less, however, they have to literally struggle (and, more often than not, swelter and probably stench) inside a crowded train.

As I was on the train, I remembered my discussion with Claudio, a good friend I met in Singapore last July. Claudio Sopranzetti is a Harvard doctorate student of Anthropology who did a commendable study on Bangkok’s Skytrain, Thailand’s version of MRT, and claimed that it wasn’t so much a mode of mass transportation, as the fare was expensive, but a retail system, which delivers passengers from one mall to another.

He told me that riding the Skytrain is close to an awkward experience – people are seated (or standing) apart and are consciously avoiding each other’s gaze. He even said that the LCD screens inside, not only function to advertise but also becomes a convenient focus for the passengers’ eyes and avoid contact.

I told him Thailand is supposedly the Philippines twin country and while mall compounds also thrive along the train’s stops, I don’t think our MRT could be viewed exactly with the same lens. For one, MRT passengers are forced to have physical contact with each other, sometimes to an irritating and harassing extent.

Dr. Lysander Padilla, one of my professors in the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School, did a study on Metro Manila’s population and argued that it had a transient one, which balloons during the day, as residents of nearby provinces like Bulacan and Pampanga in the north and Cavite, Laguna and Batangas in the south migrate to work. He said that mass transportation to, from and within Metro Manila, a mega urban region, should be a policy imperative, especially since it’s both the country’s political and economic center. His study was published in a national daily some years ago.

To be fair, the government has since been following a mass rail transit system plan that aims to facilitate inter-city travel within the mega urban region. The plan started during Ferdinand Marcos’ term and was modified during Fidel Ramos’ and again in Gloria Arroyo’s. Arroyo’s plan is more ambitious, however, as it includes the revival and modification of the Philippine National Railway, a rail transit system that extends to northern and southern provinces.

Roads and mass transportation are imperative to progress. They serve as vital veins of an urbanizing and urban region, which circulates people and products and furthers economic growth. In fact, the grid-like zoning most cities follow today are based on the European blueprint during the industrialization period, which, above all, aimed to facilitate the transportation of mass produced goods to consumers. Arroyo, being an economist, knows this, so it’s not surprising that her administration’s road network (including the commendable nautical highway) and mass transportation plans are more ambitious.

But most roads in Metro Manila were patterned after the Spanish plan in old Intramuros, which had narrow in-city networks, and are comparably taper than most developed and many developing countries. Which makes me wonder: we’re the twelfth largest country in the world by population, but why hasn’t road networks and mass transportation been a prevailing campaign or policy issue whether in local or national politics? Why do people seem to only care about mass transportation when oil price spikes? Why hasn’t it been a national or even regional development concern?

With the Metro Manila Development Authority Chair, Bayani Fernando (also a former Marikina City mayor) openly expressing his desire to run for president in 2010 and Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay (chief of the country’s financial district for more than two decades) hinting to do the same (two very experienced executives, as opposed to a number of legislators, in the presidential derby), I hope mass transportation will finally become a campaign issue. After all, if road networks and mass transportation are imperative to progress, they’re a must in addressing poverty, an over-used, misused and abused political rhetoric.