President Marcos wants his administration to be known for a railway renaissance, but Filipinos who commute daily to school and work are finding public transport in worse condition than ever.
Mobility advocate Alyssa Belda, 26, pedals her way to the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman, Quezon City every day for work. However, on rainy days, she takes the jeepney to keep herself dry in the downpour.
It takes the same time – about half an hour – to reach UP, whether Belda powers her bike with her own legs or rides the jeepney.
Her commute is plagued by age-old problems: road closures, this time for the construction of the Metro Rail Transit Line 7 (MRT-7); vehicle congestion, in her case along Elliptical Road and the traffic bottleneck entering Commonwealth Avenue.
The jeepney can only do so much in squeezing past these gridlocks.
Data collected by local and foreign researchers show that it is becoming increasingly harder for Filipinos to commute around the metro.
Initial results from the Active Transport Strategic Master Plan (ATSMP) reported that walking is now the main mode of transport among Filipinos, ahead of tricycles and jeeps.
Like Belda, more and more commuters are willing to walk longer distances and take more time to reach their destination.
The ATSMP has found that Filipinos are fine with walking, as long as the distance is just about half a kilometer and takes around 15 minutes.
Funded by the Department of Transportation (DOTr), the ATSMP aims to develop the country’s national framework for active transport such as cycling
and walking. It seeks to propose designs and strategies for the development of bike lanes and pedestrian networks.
To date, the ATSMP has gathered the insights of more than 2,900 households, mostly from Manila, because it is considered one of the worst cities for traffic congestion.
Based on map developer TomTom’s Traffic Index, Manila has the 14th heaviest congestion level in the world among 501 cities. It would take at least 32 minutes and 10 seconds for a motorist to cover 10 kilometers of distance in Manila, nearly twice as long as in other cities in Southeast Asia.
Worse, Filipinos lose 127 hours, or over five days, yearly to Manila traffic, which has an impact on their productivity and, overall, on the economy.
Apart from the time lost stuck on the road, Filipinos are paying more whether they take public or private transport. This is part of the reason more commuters are choosing to walk or bike.
The ATSMP has pegged the average daily transport costs at P108 for public modes and P245 for private units based on the survey.
When computed, P108 translates to 16 percent of the minimum wage of P695 per day in Metro Manila. This means that Filipinos are spending more for transport just to be stuck on the road for half an hour if their destination is within 10 kilometers.
For Belda, UP is roughly five kilometers away from her home, so why is it taking her at least half an hour to get to it by jeep? She flags yet another problem: transport supply.
The Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department (CPBRD), the think tank of the House of Representatives, pinned this shortage on the government’s jeepney phaseout. The program requires operators to shift to modern jeeps, which cost at least P2.2 million each.
According to data from the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, the volume of jeeps in Metro Manila was reduced by half over 10 years to 95,659 in 2023, from 193,221 in 2013.
‘There is a marked decrease in the number of PUJs [public utility jeepneys] in the MMDA data in 2023 compared to 2013. This can be partly attributed to the phasing out of traditional PUJs in line with the ongoing Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program,’ the CPBRD said.
As commuting in the metro worsens, Acting Transportation Secretary Giovanni Lopez required his subordinates to take public transport at least once a week.
The order mandates DOTr officials to come up with a weekly report outlining their observations and recommendations on public transport based on their experience. The directive has so far led to small wins for commuters.
For instance, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board issued special permits to almost 300 buses to pass through NIA Road in Quezon City from Fairview and Sapang Palay in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan.
The permits authorize the buses to load and unload at NIA Road, making it easier for passengers, especially persons with disabilities and senior citizens, to transfer to the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT-3). Prior to this, they had to walk longer to reach MRT-3’s Kamuning Station.
Lopez also directed the review of the 3,972 permits issued to operators of public utility vehicles plying Commonwealth Avenue, as he himself struggled to find a bus when he commuted to work on a Monday morning in September.
Still, these quick, little fixes would fail to amount to the comfort that could be brought upon by the completion of big-ticket railways as promised by the President. However, rail projects in the metro are dealing with delays, pushing their completion by years.
The P68.2-billion MRT-7 of San Miguel Corp. is set to partially operate only by 2027, even as it began construction in 2016, demanding commuters in the Quezon City-Bulacan corridor to wait longer before they could ride on it.
The North-South Commuter Railway, costing P873.6 billion, will operate its first line by the end of 2027, but only between Valenzuela City and Malolos, Bulacan. The railway’s Clark segment is scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2028.
The worst delay still is for the P488.5-billion Metro Manila Subway Project, which will only be finished by 2032, as it had to contend with right-of-way conflicts in business districts like Ortigas and posh villages like White Plains.
For now, as unfortunate as this may sound, Belda and her fellow commuters are forced to settle for the public transport given to them, or they have to rely on their legs to reach their destination, because they have no one else to depend on but themselves.