7 lessons on how to build back better after ‘Yolanda’

Blogger's note: I just finished watching Pacquiao's 2018 speech before Oxford, and he mentioned Yolanda and Marawi. Mr. Boxer said Marawi was being rehabilitated as he spoke. What a lie. I want to feel optimistic -- that our problems are solvable. 

Super typhoon Yolanda is an opportunity for Tacloban and the rest of the Visayas to reboot in a sustainable and democratic way, and perhaps even become a model of development.

But the rebuilding process must be re-thought. The old ways will not survive future calamities, especially with global warming and its stronger, more frequent storms.

We need not look very far. Albay has successfully fought against its destiny of geography. Located as well at the eastern seaboard, Albay (like Aurora, the rest of Bicol, Samar, and northeastern Mindanao) forms part of the country’s typhoon gateway. Albay also gets earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Because of this triple whammy, Governor Joey Salceda jokingly calls his province the Vatican of Disasters.

After typhoon Sisang, which killed 600 and destroyed P700 million in 1987, and the Mayon Volcano eruption in 1993, the provincial government in 1994 started a successful disaster preparedness program that is constantly being improved. Albay’s measure of success? Except in 2006 when storms Milenyo, Reming, and Seniang altogether killed 755, since 1995 to the present, Albay has had zero casualties.

1. Defense vs disasters starts with a plan.

The first line of defense against disasters is the integration of disaster risk reduction in development and land-use plans, according to Governor Salceda, as cited in a study of Albay disaster preparedness funded by the United Nations Development Program.

Albay’s “safe development” plans are proactive not reactive, evacuation not rescue, institutional not personal, teamwork not individual. Aimed to make the province disaster-proof, these community-based plans are constantly revised for climate change and other hazards.

“The protection of the environment from the effects of human activities and the protection of humans from the effects of the environment are both considered in planning,” according to the study, “Geography and Public Planning: Albay and Disaster Risk Management,” written by Agnes Espinas.

Engineering interventions include: river dikes, sabo dams, sea walls, and drainage systems; and dredging and rechanneling of bodies of water to protect slopes. These should prevent and mitigate the potential damages that may be inflicted on lives and properties.

2. Assess risks, map hazards.
Albay adopted a nine-level land-use measurement for residences, businesses, etc., noting whether they are lowland or upland, with hazards or no hazards, environmentally constrained, under reservation, or are coastal areas and municipal waters. The Mines and Geo-Sciences Bureau and the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology help Albay constantly upgrade its land-use map.

The province turned the principle of environmental impact assessment on its head. Before, the project came first and the EIA came later; now, the location of infrastructures is pre-determined by the hazards map. Albay’s comprehensive land-use map already lays out where settlements and development projects can be done.

For instance, houses are deemed “highly vulnerable to the impacts of disaster, and the continuous expansion of urban centers may increase [their] vulnerability without any direction for growth.” So Albay “promote(s) settlement growth in areas safe from the risks and hazards of disasters.” The “No Human Activity Area” within the six-kilometer permanent danger zone along the slopes of Mayon Volcano is strictly enforced.

People who live in danger zones and in high-risk areas for flooding, erosion, sink holes, and active fault lines are resettled through a socialized housing program that complies with the Urban Development and Housing Act (Republic Act 7279).

In existing and proposed projects, Albay asks: Is the location within the danger zone? Is it sensitive to hydro-meteorological risks like rising temperature? Is the location threatened by lahar? Is it landslide-prone? Is it flood-prone? Is it at risk to storm surge or sea level rise?

3. Fight global warming with “green” practices and technology.

A warmer Pacific Ocean is believed to create stronger storms. And we’ve seen the destructive power of winds and waves in Yolanda, let us see them — together with abundant solar energy — generate electricity right after the storm has passed.

A small (population: 2,600), agricultural village in Germany is a community that produces its own renewable energy. In fact, Wildpoldsried produces 321% more energy than it needs, generating $5.7 million in annual revenue by selling its excess energy to the national grid. In 1997, the village council decided that it should “build new industries, keep initiatives local, bring in new revenue, and create no debt.” It has since equipped new community buildings with solar panels, built biogas digesters, and installed windmills. Small businesses have developed specifically to provide services to the renewable energy installations. Its 190 private households have solar panels while the district also benefits from its small hydro power plants, ecological flood control, and natural waste water system.

The clean-and-green rebuild can extend to transportation and follow the example of the Dutch. As more than a fifth of global carbon emissions comes from fossil fuel-powered vehicles, biking presents a healthy alternative — for both people and environment.

Rounding up, let’s recycle waste. And when it comes to recycling, Sweden is incredibly successful. Just four percent of household waste in that Scandinavian country goes into landfills; the rest winds up either recycled or used as fuel in waste-to-energy power plants. Sweden is so successful in converting waste into energy that it imports its neighbors’ trash. Two problems solved: Where to get energy? What to do with trash?

Brazil, which is famous for its favelas or slums, applies a different tack. At the Vidigal favela, which had become a dump, an artist named Mauro Quintanilha got together with other volunteers, cleaned up their place, and created flower and kitchen gardens for their community.

4. Design for survival, as well as for the tropics and its devastating winds and lashing rains.

Those who helped rebuild Aceh after the 2004 tsunami say that survivors should not be forced to live in tents for more than six months, as it causes social tension.

Even at the initial stages of rebuilding, the reduce-reuse-recycle mantra must be hummed. Architect Paulo Alcazaren suggests that the trunks of the three million coconut trees felled by Yolanda be used as columns and beams for the 500,000 needed emergency shelters for the displaced. “The roofs can be tarps from all the billboard advertising taken down in Manila (a corporate social responsibility initiative of all Philippine corporations to show they care — if you still have a billboard up, that means you really don’t give a damm). Disasters may strike, but it does not mean we can’t use our coconuts to solve our problems!” he says.

What type of schools to build? Alcazaren looks back to how we built them 100 years ago. “Gabaldon school houses were constructed all over the islands in the early 20th century. The architects based the building on proven tropical design concepts: raising the ground floors against floods, damp earth, and pests, (and) using high-angled hip roofs (that) are more resistant to winds than the low-angled gable roofs of current buildings,” he says.

“The Gabaldons also had high ceilings and large capiz windows for natural light and ventilation. ‘Modern’ schoolhouses are dark and stuffy,” he notes.

Alcazaren, who is also an urban planner, reminds the rebuilders to consider and design “rational transport and communication systems; walkable, well-lit, and tree-shaded streets; compact, mixed-use district morphology; parks and open spaces (for recreation and refuge); and elegant but robust civic buildings.”

Aside from school buildings, the other civic building that normally transforms into an evacuation center during calamities is the stadium.

Alcazaren suggests the following retro-fit to incorporate its secondary post-disaster function: “1) no regular seating, just planking or padded mats that can serve as beds for refugees; 2) rainwater harvested from roof and stored in each column-silo/cistern to be used for toilets; 3) toilets with more than the usual number of stalls, urinals, or showers using the harvested rainwater; and 4) emergency power from generator sets (mandatory) but augmented with solar panels plus pedal power.”

At the same time, the town or city stadium must be “built on elevated sites with additional flat areas around for tents and helicopter landing zones, with emergency clinic and medical supplies embedded here,” he says.

And for emergency communications, he suggests bringing back “ham radio or shortwave — this can be battery powered and will reach Manila and overseas!”

5. Re-channel investments that create “green” jobs and lower environmental risks.

Based on its land-use grading system, Albay limits permanent infrastructure and heavy industries in higher hazard areas, and encourages “rehabilitative,” nature-enhancing (biodiversity), innovative, value-adding (like “hazards” tourism or educational tours on natural hazards) economic activities.

Indonesia’s Banda Aceh, which was levelled by huge seismic-sourced waves in 2004, has tsunami tourism trails.

In these higher hazard areas, high-value crops, pasture, and poultry- and hog-raising are encouraged, as well as forest plantations and plantations of high-value crops which improve vegetative cover, and terrace farming which stabilizes slopes.

As agriculture remains the backbone of the Philippine economy, this sector in Albay promotes technologies that prevent soil erosion within public lands with slope of 30 to 50 percent. Aside from reducing impacts of calamities, these rehabilitate and develop forests, watersheds, and eco-tourism areas.

Plus, all of this reconstruction means jobs, especially for those who lost their means of livelihood in the typhoon.

By the shores, planting mangroves must be encouraged, if not funded. The mangroves in Northern Samar were credited for slowing down the storm surges, saving lives and livelihoods in the process.

6. Involve everyone, especially the poor.

How do we ensure success? Involve everyone. Or in the development language, practice inclusiveness and participative democracy.

In Albay’s case, they involve the people, towns and cities, barangays, church, schools, non-government organizations (local and international), business, the weather bureau, the volcanology institute, the geo-sciences bureau, and all the significant entities.

According to the study on Albay, information, communication, education, organization, and mobilization programs improve the communities’ sense of security and confidence. They allow the local communities to help themselves and inspire more community-based early warning systems. Below is an example of a social map and a hazard map of a village in Albay that the residents themselves made in a workshop facilitated by the church.

Also, the goodwill generated by the tragedy everywhere must be harnessed in the rebuilding. We can start asking the international community, including the international NGOs, for these things.

Being inclusive means being pro-poor. Most of those who were most severely affected were poor people in the coastal areas. Getting them involved in the process of rebuilding will help them cope with the trauma and even (yes, let’s be ambitious) overcome their pre-Yolanda poverty.

A lot of Eastern Visayans were hungry even before the super typhoon. Sixteen percent (or one in six) of almost one million families in Eastern Visayas experienced hunger in April, May, and June of 2011, according to the National Statistics Office, which conducted the survey in 2011 but released it only early this year.

Hardest hit by Yolanda, Eastern Visayas is the country’s third poorest region with 37.2 percent of its population (or an estimated 4.2 million people) living below poverty line, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) report for 2012. It came third after the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (which had a 46.9-percent poverty incidence) and Central Mindanao (37.5 percent).

The economic profile of the region for 2012 shows that despite having a gross domestic product of P228 billion, growth in the region is -6.2 percent, says the NSCB.

7. Eliminate poverty, inequality: Think BIG.

Make social protection universal. Firstly because it is a right, and secondly because the Eastern Visayans need it most now. The Network for Transformative Social Protection defines social protection as those that people need to live. The Asia-based network maintains that governments have the duty to provide these to their citizens: food, shelter, livelihood, health care, education, and basic utilities (water, power, telecommunications). These were partly discussed above.

And in place of the trickle-down effect, why not start from the bottom? The government’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) which gives out money to poor families in exchange for pregnant mothers going for pre-natal check-ups and for children going to school is a start. Why not change the game and expand the bottom-up idea by giving everyone a basic income guarantee (BIG) as a way of eliminating poverty and inequality? The idea of paying citizens a small amount of money enough to survive for simply living — perfect for the Yolanda survivors — is being proposed in Switzerland.

But it was in the Namibia village of Otjivero where the church and the local government co-funded the experiment for two years. There, BIG brought out the best in people. Instead of developing a mendicant mentality, those who received 100 Namibian dollars (about P433) every month gained dignity and became empowered. Much like the trust fund for rich people, BIG not only freed the poor from crushing poverty, it also enabled them to be fully human, living with dignity.

What were the BIG impacts? According to Herbert Jauch of the BIG Coalition in Namibia, it brought down the rates of poverty, unemployment, school drop-out, and crime. As both rich and poor received the allowance (if you will), the rich could not look down on the poor while there was no disincentive for the poor to becoming productive because whether they are or not, whether they wisely use the money and make it grow or not, they still got BIG.

A network in the United States is also campaigning for BIG, arguing too that unlike other social protection schemes, its universality makes it easier and cheaper to administer. Jauch calculates that expanding the program nationwide would be substantial, but cost only a fraction of both Namibia’s GDP (2.2 percent to 3 percent) and its national budget (5 percent to 6 percent). Or for a rough estimate for the Philippines, that’s about P113.25 billion to P135.9 billion, not even 14 times the amount of PDAF allegedly squandered through the bogus NGOs of Janet Lim-Napoles.

In the end, we don’t want to be like Haiti, caught up in the same or worse poverty cycle as before the 2009 earthquake that levelled the poor country.

Remember the goal is for a climate change-resilient, people-centered, green community. The money is there. The knowledge is there. Now, all we need is somebody to lead the way from here to there. –Veronica Uy, InterAksyon.com

Morning walks with Pio

(Blogger's note: I have always been a cat person. But Fluffy, my first dog, who was stolen, changed all that. Now I have Andy, my dogg-o. As I've not been able to write anything new, I am posting a love letter of a friend, Marina, to his son Pio.)

He beats my alarm clock most days. As soon as the rays of sunshine hit the bed, Pio, the chihuahua mix whom I adopted more than a year ago, licks my face to wake me up. If I try to hide under my blanket, he will burrow his slight 6-pound frame until he is able to lick my nose. He will also drop his toy on my face, if I fail to sit up right away. He has his methods. Snoozing is not an option.

And so my day begins.

After a trip to the toilet, I step on a digital weighing scale. I have been struggling with my weight for the last twenty years. A health warning from my doctor after a spike in my blood sugar has forced me to face this struggle with greater concern. I am using a diet app to monitor my progress. I am learning to change the composition of my calorie sources as well as train to reduce the calorie density of my meals.

Pio follows me around as I prepare a quick breakfast and eat it. He watches me. Any hint of a pause in my activities, he drops a squeaky toy at my feet. He wants to play. That’s the reason he woke me up. Mom! Mom! I can hear the thought bubbles come out of his head.

I take his collar, harness, and leash. I tell him to come up to the sofa so that I can put them on him. He normally puts up a fight, running away from me as I put his harness on. It’s a game he plays but it’s half-serious. He’s happy to go out but he doesn’t want to wear a harness. This is New York City, dog! And you are a New York City dog. You have to wear your tag and be on a leash, you know that. Otherwise, Mom will be fined. Besides, the collar-harness-leash combo is Italian leather!

I get ready to leave. I collect the poop bag, the dog treats, and my apartment keys. Pio is ready and waiting by door. He’s excited. I put on my shoes. Pio is patiently waiting for the door to open. When I do, he’s first out of the apartment. He waits patiently for me to lock up and then he goes running down the flights of stairs to the ground floor. On his way, he checks if I’m following him. At the main door, I put on his leash.

We make our way to Fort Tryon Park, a block from where we live. On a nice day, the walk takes us an hour. I have a preferred route but Pio likes to change things around. Today, I will insist on going up the hill behind The Cloisters, which is part of the Museum of Modern Art, and walk along the path overlooking Hudson River.

Depending on the time of morning, we will come across the regulars, usually by the back entrance to the park. If it’s very early, say around 6ish or half past, Pio gets to say hi to one of his favorite big dogs, an Irish Wolfhound named Ellie. I don’t know why Pio adores him. He’s a very chill 165-pound pony-sized dog who works as a therapy dog for war veterans and at-risk school children. When Pio sees Ellie, he will strain at the leash and run to him when I let him go. He tries to smell Ellie but Ellie’s too tall so Pio will try to get his attention so that Ellie will smell him instead. Pio will even lie on his back to show his belly in hopes that Ellie will notice him. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

If we are out an hour later, we meet up with Persephone, a mystery mutt rescued from Puerto Rico after the huge hurricane. There’s also a retirement aged French bulldog whose name I now forget. Persephone’s human family has a boy in middle school who goes through the park to catch his school bus. The boy and the Frenchie get along well.

The Frenchie’s human is Ed and Ed is popular with dogs in the park. Ed calls himself the drug dealer to the dogs. He carries lamb lung treats with him. Apparently, dogs can’t get enough of these things. You can see him surrounded with dogs sitting and waiting for their turn to get their share. I bought a bag of those treats because Pio is one of the park addicts who gets excited as soon as he sees Ed. When the treats were delivered to the apartment, I offered them to Pio and he refused to take them. Damn dog! What?! Pio only takes them from Ed, the dealer!

I enjoy these walks. I have made friends. Or, more accurately, Pio has made friends.

I like the walks for other things. The changing of the seasons are the highlight. During winter, the best day is when the snow comes down in powdery form and kids take their plastic sleds down a small hill with a meadow at the bottom. Pio and I are bundled up in triple or quadruple layers as we trudge through soft snow along the trail. At Spring time, two cherry trees go in full pink bloom at this meadow compelling you to take a photo to capture such a special moment.  In the Summer, the Heather Garden is the center of attention. Each day introduces you to a new flower in bloom. You walk along thinking you have seen the peak and the next day a new bunch of comes out in full display. Or, maybe you just didn’t notice that one the other day. The garden is lush and you don’t have a name for every color of petal or shape of leaf. Your smile today is not the same smile as yesterday’s. For me, Autumn is most glorious. When leaves turn to yellow, or rust, or brown and they begin to lose their grip on the branches. Then they fall and swirl and catch the breeze. The ground is littered with these chlorophyll factories shutting down and turning the ground into an abstract mosaic of another year about to end.

On the way back to the apartment, Pio often pounces on me from the back. He’ll jump up with his front paws hitting my legs. He’ll keep doing that until one of two things happen. I give him a treat. And not just one. Or, I pick him up and carry him home. Yeah, he plays at being a baby. Then one day, while I carried him, he fidgeted around and he stood up balancing himself on both my outstretched arms. That’s right, the image in your head is right. I am walking in the park with a dog standing on my arms like I had an Egyptian pharaoh on parade and I was his slave carrier.

I am not a morning person. But since I adopted Pio, I have had to change my routine to train him into a city-appropriate, community friendly dog. I probably benefitted more from this change than I’d like to admit. The morning walks now take me half way to my 10,000 steps a day goal. My doctor is pleased. My therapist is also pleased since the walks have led to increased human contact in this very individualistic, hectic, and oftentimes toxic city. Pio wakes me up each morning. He walks me through the park while I try to find meaning in the changing of the seasons. Then he makes me carry him home. I adopted Pio and now he owns me.

Why pick on provincial buses?

Blogger's note: This article originally came out in interaksyon.com on August 7, 2013 with the title, TAMING THE ROAD RAGE | 5 things MMDA missed in its ban on provincial buses, as a reaction to the blogger's personal experience. I am reposting this here as because the authorities (MMDA, HPG, LTFRB, DoTR, Malacañang) are again planning to deprive commuters from the provinces access to the city. I should really write an updated version to include the devastating contribution of cars to the raging climate crisis but I'm always stuck in traffic.)

Metro Manila Development Authority’s ban on provincial buses coming from the southern provinces of Batangas, Laguna, and Cavite from entering the metropolis was a targeted, state-sponsored implosion. Unfortunately, it blew up in the faces of the commuting masses (http://interaksyon.com/article/68053/carless-commuters-from-cavite-stranded-on-first-day-of-ban-on-provincial-buses). What did MMDA miss before implementing the ban, which is part of a strategic Malacanang plan to have an integrated transport system (http://cms.interaksyon.com/assets/documents/Administrative%20Order%2040.pdf)?

1. The biggest part of the equation = the affected commuters

The thousands of commuters from the southern Tagalog provinces who travel to Metro Manila every day for work or school have not been consulted. Of all the road users, the largest constituent did not figure out in MMDA’s equation. According to its website, a couple of days before the Aug. 6 implementation of the ban (http://www.mmda.gov.ph/news.html#jul312013), the MMDA consulted the Cavite mayors, presumably because they speak for and in behalf of their commuting public. (Just one question: Does any mayor take the public transport?) MMDA also had discussions with the bus operators and with other government agencies, including the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board. But where were the most affected by the scheme? Stranded and soaking under the rain. Late for work or school. And if their curses had force, MMDA officials would have died a thousand creative deaths.

Metro Manila’s great implosion is imminent unless some drastic changes are made. And everyone knows this -- with every occasional road accident or seasonal mall-wide sales and flood-bringing rains that bring the metropolis in a terrible standstill.

Aside from other attempts to bring order in metro streets, former MMDA chief Bayani Fernando had a campaign promoting civility among road users. Urbanidad, he called it. But a big part of the reason he failed and current MMDA chief Francis Tolentino is failing is precisely the absence of urbanidad, which includes respect -- for the people’s experience, point of view, insights. They failed to harness people power in the way that the late Jesse Robredo was able to do for Naga City as its mayor and for Metro Manila informal settlers as interior secretary (http://www.interaksyon.com/article/41147/5-reasons-why-jesse-robredo-is-a-great-loss-or-5-amazing-things-about-him-as-a-politician). To include the people in the planning and decision-making partly ensures that people will adhere to the planned change.

Consulting with, or at least informing, affected parties is a sign of respect. The way MMDA dropped the bomb of changes, indicates utter disrespect. Where was the people in all these? MMDA, binastos mo boss mo.

When Manila Mayor Erap Estrada received flak for doing something similar last month, he asked for patience. “Eksperimento pa lang ito (This is just an experiment).” Guinea pigs pala ang mga tao.

2. Empathy

Do those who have control over commuters’ lives know what it’s like? To wake up three hours before an appointment, wait by the roadside at not-bus stops, stand an hour on a lurching bus with a color-blind Michael Schumacher-wannabe driver, endure buhos-buhos traffic “system,” take another train or jeepney ride, repeat this backward to get home, and pay for this daily torture? If the MMDA did, it would actually think to ease this burden.

But that may be asking for too much. Toddlers are said to learn empathy starting at two years old. Apparently, bureaucracy (or is it political power?) retards intellectual and emotional growth.

An online petition (http://www.change.org/petitions/president-benigno-aquino-iii-please-require-all-public-officials-to-take-public-transit-once-a-month) is asking chauffeured top government officials to take the public transport once a month to let them experience what 80 percent of the estimated 12 million Metro Manila population suffer -- a little like Communist China’s “re-education” of its intelligentsia whom it banished to labor with peasants. The lesson here is unless you are able to walk in another’s shoes, you cannot know which shoe holes to mend or whether to get a new pair.

I want to make a slight revision to the online petition: Let public executives do this on the daily minimum wage. Many of the commuters live on a strict budget. An additional jeepney ride is at least 3 percent additional deduction from the minimum wage earner’s take-home pay. At the Taft Station of MRT, the commuting masses queue at the entrance for those without P100 stored value cards, a sign that most commuters cannot even spare the amount for a cup of Starbucks coffee so they may skip the line for buying tickets. Many train riders include construction workers who survive on a day-by-day basis. ‘Ika nga, yung mga bawal magkasakit.

The government is said to be at wit’s end trying to craft programs for “inclusive growth” and include the Filipino poor in the embrace of record economic growth. For starters, why can’t it simply consider rules (traffic and others) that won’t eat into people’s meager salaries?

3. Adequate information dissemination

The first day of the ban was chaotic. Commuters, bus drivers, and traffic enforcers were clueless. Where can we get the van/multicab/jeepney that would take us to Lawton, LRT, MRT, EDSA, the cancelled destinations of these buses? Nobody knows. At the Coastal Mall terminal, several men in uniform were handing out flyers, which some commuters thought would contain useful information on where to get their next ride. The flyer said, “Wag magkalat (Don’t litter).” Ang sarap ibato sa nagbibigay ng flyer.

During the time of President Cory Aquino, there was a flurry of flyover constructions all over the metropolis: Ortigas-Edsa, Ayala-Edsa, Magsaysay Boulevard-Gov. Forbes, etc. That time, without Internet or Twitter, the DPWH was on the tri-media every day, if not every hour.

The DPWH took out ads and granted interviews left and right -- about the need for the infrastructure projects and alternate traffic routes for public and private vehicles.

Such a simple idea to minimize the confusion that any change brings: Bombard the public with useful information. This point still stems from the idea of respect for the governed if you don’t have the time or the inclination to actively engage the people.

4. Actual plan

Apart from the practical questions posed by unpleasantly surprised commuters, may it also be asked: Where’s the plan, Stan? What is the basis for the plan? Administrative Order No. 40 (http://cms.interaksyon.com/assets/documents/Administrative%20Order%2040.pdf) says the goals include:

* Provide a convenient, efficient, safe transport system. (Convenient and safe for whom?)

* Decongest roadway. (Not near and around the terminal stations at Coastal Mall, Lawton, and Buendia-Taft.)

* Promote road and commuter safety (With the absence of a clear plan? Or an informed enforcing manpower? Fail.)

* Reduce pollution in EDSA (Fast-track the expansion of eco-friendly metro train operations.)

A plan presupposes that much thought has been put into what is to be done, that there is some science to it. These were never made public: How many provincial buses enter the metropolis? How many people do they carry? What times of day do they clog the streets? Do they have regular stops? How many have terminals inside the metropolis? How many don’t?

And more importantly, the same questions must be asked of private cars, of jeepneys, of vans.

Is the problem not simply a problem of enforcement? Everywhere in Metro Manila, simple traffic rules are broken. The intersection of Taft Avenue and EDSA is a perfect example. All modes of transportation are there: depadyak, tricycles, jeepneys, cars, vans, buses. Almost always, there are traffic enforcers. And rarely is it not clogged. It’s the very definition of entropy. This is why the Bourne producers chose this spot to shoot the movie.

Why did MMDA not keep permanently open the left-turning slot for northbound vehicles on Coastal Road? This way, the buses won’t compete for limited space at the corner of Roxas Boulevard and MIA Road as they turn left to the terminal. (Blogger's note: Left-turning is now permanent with the construction of a vehicle overpass in this area.)

And why, oh why, did MMDA have to start their experiment in the middle of the school year, the rainy season? Was it not possible to implement the plan in a staggered way? To give the system time to recognize and solve the kinks?

5. Overall vision

Sell us a vision of a livable city. The earlier mentioned online petition (http://www.change.org/petitions/president-benigno-aquino-iii-please-require-all-public-officials-to-take-public-transit-once-a-month) hints at what that could be in terms of standard for public transport: Make it such that people with children, old people, people with disability are able to move around the metropolis in a safe, comfortable, affordable, and predictable manner. Accessible and available.

That means no interminably long lines, no jam-packed trains, no rickety buses and jeepneys, and shorter long travel times. No racing drivers, no holdups or pickpockets.

Air clean enough for walking and biking. Streets with sidewalks and drainage systems (required by law but where are they?) and bicycle lanes.

**

Essentially, the provincial bus ban, which will soon extend to those coming from the north, from Baguio, Subic, Clark, etc., lacks two basic things: brain and heart.

At Tuesday’s chaos, people were saying variations of these: “Parang di pinag-isipan (It’s as if they did not think it through).” “Di na naawa sa mga pasahero, lalo na yung matatanda at may dalang mga bata (They have no pity for the passengers, especially the elderly and those with children).”

To which, public officials responded, “Masasanay rin yan (They will get used to it).” What are these people doing in public service?