Christian Marc Benosa CE122-2_A74

2020151802 11/20/21

Transportation in Metro Manila

Growth and progress in the Philippines has been widely noticed throughout the world. The

economy has been a huge factor in the rise of the country for the past years. Making the nation the rising

tiger of Asia. The continuous progress has created numerous opportunities and the same time issues that

prevent the nation in further growing. Based on the NEDA, the vast majority of the wealth come from the

Metro Manila region or the National Capital Region. Its prosperity has brought the country into a gateway

of success but limiting its capabilities in the region without much expansion to other places has also

created a surge of problems that limits the productivity and stalls the progress all over the nation.

Problems such as slow urbanization in other regions due to having the spotlight of business in the NCR,

opportunities only focuses on the NCR and overpopulation in the Metro Manila area. This brings me with

the problem of overly dense populated area being a catalyst to multiple issues that halt the progress in the

Metro Manila and also throughout the Philippines. One factor that is affected is the transportation sector

where most businesses lose over 3 billion pesos per day due to uncontrollable traffic and unorganized

transportation. Transportation is crucial into having a continuous movement of the economy because

individuals, corporations, and governments all rely on transportation to obtain resources, demonstrating

the importance of transportation. A civilization cannot operate optimally unless it has transportation-

related measures in place. Being able to arrive at numerous locations or deliver various products on time

is critical for overall efficiency and sustainable growth, from mobility to work to travel throughout the

world. The reason on why the whole globe keeps on moving forward is because of people, resources,

jobs, and economies having a seamless flow. In the situation of Metro Manila, what is the current scenario

and the same time how we could improve such dilemma in order to not recreate the same problem in

other regions in the country?

 In my perspective, current situation of Metro Manila is still in a stage of development when it

comes to transportation. Having to open more skyways and projects being under construction is yet to

make a breakthrough in the setting of the region. What I see when I was in Manila 3 years ago, was that

the streets were jammed packed with people in the early morning and at night. People having to struggle

to commute during rush hours is one thing that the citizens have to deal with in their everyday lives.

According to reports, traffic in Manila alone has cost the Philippine economy billions of pesos. This

reduces people's productivity and wastes time and effort for everyone. The discussion itself served as a

reminder to us that we must take action to safeguard our environment and think creatively about how to

address such challenges even if the government is unable to do so. However, as far as I can see, the issue

is how we run the city. There is no involvement of city planning in the process. People continue to flock

to Manila, oblivious to the fact that it is already packed. It is obvious that the government must intervene

to regulate the heavily inhabited area. As we all know, simply creating additional skyways and routes will

not transform the region; the answer to the problem will rest on us, on how we reduce the population

within the city. Because, according to the discourse, the number of automobiles on the road is increasing

every year, and the roads' capacity cannot manage the increased traffic. As a result, it all depends on how

people themselves should participate in resolving the situation. Another way that traffic congestion has

harmed us is via our health, since the streets are littered with old automobiles such as jeeps. They release

more carbon than contemporary automobiles, affecting the health of everyone in the neighborhood. This

is a public health concern that is looming in the area.

Moreover, when the pandemic had started, it had worsened the situation of traffic and people

flowing after the lockdown where everybody returns to their daily jobs. But during the lockdown, the

situation was quite peaceful as it has halt multiple transportation including Jeepneys and Tricylces. The

outbreak has created a sense of realization for citizen on how the situation of traffic within the Metro

Manila was the worst as people started to compare the flow of traffic before the pandemic and during the

outbreak. After the lockdown, COVID clearly affected how people commute and the process of
transportation. People lives of commuting after the lockdown has worsened because of the protocols

being implemented and restriction being carried out such as having to limit the capacity of the person in

the public transportation and people resorting to individual rides for safer trip. This contributed to more

problem into an already problematic issue. What it means of the pandemic for the transportation is that it

brought more problems and creates more limitation for the transportation in Metro Manila to improve

because now health should be taken into consideration. Regardless by air, land or sea the impact of

COVID to transportation in local and international setting is not much different. But in the local setting

the PH transport sector was hit hard by the pandemic. Multiple Filipinos loss their income due to it. The

pandemic has affected different lives form the Jeepney drivers to aviation. In the international setting,

aviation has been a down for most as tourism plummeted. There is a time where the Philippine Airline

filed for bankruptcy. This has impacted not only the economy but the lives of people who were dependent

on tourist. Not much to say but the fact the pandemic had started the downfall of our nation is something

the government should be responsible for as they’re the one who ignored the threats of the virus.

With all the events, in transportation, there is a need of improvement and transportation planning

is one way could help the situation of traffic in Metro Manila, with or without COVID. Let’s face it, the

reason of the heavy traffic is poor planning. Having to build more skyways or add more train system

won’t solve the issue. The issue has something to do with the people. Adding more people to an already

densely populated area is not practical as land is limited. The more we add people, the size of the area will

never change. So with transportation planning it can create a synergy of change such as how we

encourage people to use more public transportation rather than making them drive individually. The less

cars there is in the street, the lesser congestion there will be in the roads. That’s why planning is important

because to mitigate something there should be rules to be apply and a solution to be solved. As a future

engineer, my role in improving transportation in the city is to limit the capacity of people living in the

city. How? By having to limit the number of people in a particular building can enable the government to
control the population of the city. Another role, is to maintain more roads so that there won’t be any

delays in transportation.

To sum it all up, an ideal transportation should look like a city where citizen is comfortable with,

either in regards to health and convenience. Seeing in the Figure 1, it shows the different possibilities on

how crowded or not it is if people use private cars or public ones. The difference on people are the same

but the transportation they used makes the difference. What it shows how simple planning can equate to

better results. To conclude, Metro Manila problem on traffic is due to how we plan things from how to

control people living in the area to how we manage the traffic flow. With this, everything has a solution

it’s a matter of execution.

(Figure 1)
 References:

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