ABSTRACT
At his presidential inaugural address in 2010, Benigno Simeon C. Aguino (popularly known as ‘PNoy’) proclaimed his anti-‘wangwang’ (sirens used by government vehicles) promise, declaring that the days of ‘blaring, much-abused sirens’ were over, while also signalling his administration’s campaign against corruption and the ‘mind-set of entitlement’ regarding road use (Interaksiyon. com 2011). Indeed, from then on only emergency service vehicles would be allowed to hurriedly plough through traffic while the rest of the public would be left to cope with each passing traffic jam as best they could. But so far, the Metro Manila Development Authority, the state agency in charge of traffic management in the National Capital Region (NCR, also called Metropolitan Manila, or Metro Manila for short), has been unable to address the mounting traffic congestion problems in the Philippines’ largest urban centre, leading some (Herrera 2015; see also White 2015) to question if PNoy’s six-year term that was set to end in 2016 has been successful. For example, the persistent ‘tukod’ (stalled traffic) at the historical EDSA (Epifanio delos Santos Avenue, named after a Filipino historian, a 24-kilometre north-south circumferential road previously named Highway 54), the site of the 1986 People Power Revolution, shows just how difficult it is for people to get to their destination, especially at peak hours. While EDSA traffic may thus be slow, or even often at a complete standstill during rush hours, the Philippine economy is said to be one of fastest growing in the world (Robinson 2015) at about 6 to 7 per cent annually. And to many, mobility now seems to be less of a problem than before insofar as a large number of Filipinos increasingly move about, or even migrate out of the country: About ten million Filipinos live or work abroad in more than a hundred different countries to earn money for their children’s education, shelter, health, and consumption; farmers abandon farm lands (to the detriment of agriculture) and head for the cities, while low-cost air carriers and new cars – and air-conditioned buses ferried across island destinations on board roll-on-roll-off vessels – provide new means for greater circulation and movement (Philippine Statistics Authority n.d.). Yet such new forms of mobility remain unavailable to many ordinary Filipinos, who still use the Pasig River ferry along the heavily silted and stinking waterway that divides Manila north and south. Manila’s urban poor develop
small plyboard carts with small bearing wheels to move passengers along the old railroad tracks in the city, and the remaining, and often ageing, farmers convert Chinese-made hand tractors into three-wheeled vehicles (called kuliglig, literally cricket) often treading dangerously along the national highway. In light of this it is timely to consider mobility in the country’s metropolis as a pressing issue that warrants closer scrutiny. Up to now, legitimate concerns about the urban transport mess have been raised in a few studies, although in very different ways. One study connects urban transport woes to the colonial legacy and claims that it was the entry of the automobile that, especially in the colonial city of Manila, led to ‘profound changes in the formation of modern societies and the very idea of modernity’ (Pante 2014, 855). Another study, by Chiu and Shioji (2006), chronicles the way in which the calesa’s (a horse-drawn coach) cultural appeal facilitated the shift that led to the enthronement of the jeepney as the ‘king of the road’ in post-war Philippines, visible in the jeepney driver and operator’s fascination with metal horse figures as decorative, symbolic reminder of old-fangled transport animal. Last, there are several reports prepared by the think tank, the Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS), that seek, in part, to critique how government failure in the fields of urban and transport planning has produced a situation where the country lags behind many of its neighbouring Asian countries (Manasan and Mercado 1999; Aldaba 2013; Navarro 2014; Ofreneo 2015). In contrast, in this chapter I discuss Filipino mobility in the context of Metro Manila with particular reference to the specificities of the contemporary transportation situation. I argue that while transportation is a public good, mobility has become a private and personalised pursuit. This discrepancy poses a barrier to development, one that is sustained not only by the lack of concern for public welfare, but also by the transformation of the urban and rural economy. In spite of civil society promotion of the principles of ‘inclusive mobility’ (Romero 2015; see also Fernando 1998) – most of which are already covered by law and, presumably, by common standards of morality – and its calls for behavioural change, the state’s inability to provide basic public goods, and to respond appropriately to the traffic situation (Santiago 2014) may well, I suggest, frustrate popular expectations for even modest improvements of current conditions. Metaphorically speaking, urban mobility in Manila today is not unlike the via crucis (the way of the Cross), the ‘path of suffering’ associated with Christ; the deterioration of the traffic situation is too obvious to miss, and people who have been in Manila long enough to remember how easy it once was to move about can hardly be blamed for moving out as soon as they can. Metro Manila reportedly has more vehicles per kilometre of road than Singapore and more people per square kilometre than Tokyo; with 16 cities under its coverage, Metro Manila’s transport system relies on more than 400 private bus companies covering more than 800 routes. In fact, about 80 per cent of the vehicles in Metro Manila are privately owned; there are about 35,000 jeepneys; 6,000 utility vehicles (UVs), and 200,000 tricycles and pedicabs in the NCR (UP Forum 2015). While tricycles and pedicabs are confined to local routes of about five kilometres per trip, many of the other vehicles run
on six circumferential roads and ten radial roads, a good number of which are said to be ‘incomplete’ or in poor condition. This chapter seeks to historicise and chronologise key changes in the trajectory of jeepney, tricycle and car transportation, and to weave the changes into a narrative of the quest for mobility by different segments of the urban population. Transport modes are adopted by people as they locate themselves and their circumstances within a given set of conditions, and no matter how much they may try to become masters of their own mobility they always have to contend with factors beyond their control. How they do so in Metro Manila is the main concern of this chapter. I begin by offering a brief historical overview of transport modes in Manila and its environs; this is followed by an account of the reign of the jeepney in the post-war years, and the gradual emergence of many of Manila’s current mobility troubles. The subsequent sections look first at the triumph of the tricycle and the factors that led to it, and then at the quest for automobility via car ownership and its concomitant contribution to the present transport congestion.
