FilOil EcoOil Centre, City of San Juan
April 10, 2024
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. highlighted the complicated and multi-faceted problem of traffic congestion in Metro Manila, one of the biggest burdens confronting commuters and motorists in the National Capital Region (NCR), as he convened the ‘Bagong Pilipinas Town Hall Meeting on Traffic Concerns’ in the City of San Juan.
The first public consultation gathered stakeholders from the transport groups, private and business sectors, the academe, and local government officials and personnel to discuss the causes of gridlock in the metropolis, share valuable inputs, observations and concrete long-term solutions to the perennial traffic problem.
“Ang ekonomiya ng Pilipinas ay sixty percent ay nanggagaling from and around Metro Manila. Kaya’t pag sinasabi three and a half billion ang nawawala sa atin araw-araw, hindi maliit na numero yun. Dahil hindi lamang dito sa Metro Manila kung hindi sa lahat ng mga karatig na probinsiya ay nararamdaman din nila yang problema na yan,” President Marcos Jr. said in his keynote message.
From 14 million people at night, Metro Manila’s population increases to 17-18 million during the day with the influx of workers coming from nearby provinces, according to the President, thus the need to come up with strategies to ease traffic woes while ensuring the public’s safety of travel.
“Sa aking pananaw, sa aming pananaw ay talaga naman na ang solusyon diyan ay pagandahin natin ang ating public transport system,” he stated, noting that an efficient and speedy mass transport improves mobility and transfer of people from one place to another.
The Chief Executive emphasized the importance of close cooperation among the national government, Metro Manila’s local government units (LGUs) and government enforcement agencies in solving the traffic problem.
“The national government can plan everything that we want, but we have to have the cooperation of the local governments to understand what the problems are in your place, what the possible solutions are, and how we bring it all together into one complete system which we can monitor and which we can regulate,” he added.
He reiterated the need to undertake long-term projects and not the piecemeal basis which has been the case in responding to the traffic congestion all these years, urging the Metro Manila mayors to be forward-thinking in their respective projects.
“We must now understand how to solve the problem of traffic. And it is so multi-faceted, it is so complicated, there are so many stakeholders. But nonetheless, it is a job that we have to do,” President Marcos Jr. concluded in his speech.
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