ABSTRACT
This article provides a holistic analysis of traffic congestion in Metro Manila, treating traffic and transport in the Philippines’ national capital region as an ecosystem which has entrenched itself, endured, and evolved in the face of ongoing demographic, economic, and technological change. The article focuses on the activities and initiatives of a new “species” within Metro Manila’s transport ecosystem – the transport reform advocacy group – to identify and examine both the constituent elements and complex operations of the ecosystem and its capacities for resistance, resilience, and reconstitution in the face of reforms. These reform initiatives include a proposed bus rapid transit (BRT) system, the loosening of number coding restrictions on public utility vehicles, the liberalization of point-to-point (P2P) bus services, the legalization of motorcycle taxis, the Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP), the establishment of bicycle lanes, and the expansion and improvement of pedestrian walkways to improve micro-mobility in the metropolis. The article concludes with a consideration of the efforts of transport reform advocacy groups to advance these elements of their reform agenda amidst the ongoing global pandemic and the government-imposed quarantine and economic downturn in the Philippines in early-mid 2020.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Toix Cerna and Robie Siy for their assistance and encouragement with my research and analysis, and Emma Colven, Erik Harms, Sylvia Nam, and Bob Shepherd for their astute comments, questions, and suggestions for revisions on successive drafts of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributor
John T. Sidel is the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He is the author of several books on Southeast Asia, most recently (with Jaime Faustino) Thinking and Working Politically in Development: Coalitions for Change in the Philippines (The Asia Foundation, 2020), and Republicanism, Communism, Islam: Cosmopolitan Origins of Revolution in Southeast Asia (Cornell University Press, in press).
Notes
2 See, for example, Intelligent Transport Society of Korea Citation2018.
3 For the somewhat similar conception of a “regime of congestion,” see Gopakumar Citation2020.
5 This examination of the varying fates of these transport reform initiatives is based on a diverse range of documentary sources, media reports, and interviews with experts, officials, and company owners in the transport sector that I have collected and conducted over a series of trips to the Philippines since 2016.
6 Holmes Citation2016, 31. Over the course of 2014 to 2016, maintenance problems with MRT-3 trains led to recurring disruptions and derailments which drastically affected the seventeen-kilometer line along the major thoroughfare of Epifanio De los Santos Avenue (EDSA). At its peak, the MRT-3 was servicing more than 500,000 passengers per day, and the direct and indirect impact of disruption to the line generated considerable public outrage in the period leading up to the May 2016 election, with Roxas implicated in widely publicized accusations of DOTC incompetence, negligence, and corruption.
12 For background on the LRT1 Extension, for example, see Amojelar Citation2016.
21 For background on this system, see Domingo, Briones, and Gundaya Citation2015. The Philippines Supreme Court has defined the kabit system as “an arrangement whereby a person who has been granted a certificate of convenience allows another person who owns motor vehicles to operate under such franchise for a fee.”
22 Personal interviews with two P2P bus company owners, September 9, 2019.
23 Personal interviews with two P2P bus company owners, September 9, 2019.
25 Madarang Citation2020. Marcos’ son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, served as a senator from 2010 to 2016 before running as Duterte’s vice-presidential running mate in 2016, and his daughter, Imee Marcos, was elected to the Senate in 2019.
26 Institute for Transportation and Development Policy/Asian Development Bank Citation2016b.
32 Department of Transportation (DOTr) Citation2017; Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) Citation2018.
33 Interview with an owner of a jeepney company, April 18, 2018.
34 Department of Transportation, Department of the Interior and Local Government, and Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board Citation2017.
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