A rising tide of public concern over severe traffic congestion in Metro Manila requires serious consideration of a holistic plan submitted by the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) that has received support from the Cabinet, legislators and concerned civil society organizations.

Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista met with MAP leaders last March 1 and vowed to act on the policy recommendations, as these require inter-agency coordination. The House of Representatives, through its Committee on Metro Manila Development, held a public hearing last March 20, on House Bill No. 4363 that seeks to provide emergency powers to the President to deal with the apparent traffic crisis in the National Capital Region (NCR).

The MAP Holistic Plan supports a state-of-calamity declaration, noting that an estimated ₱3.5 billion cost is incurred daily as an offshoot of traffic congestion in the NCR, and that the traffic crisis is characterized by conditions that are like those provided by law in the aftermath of natural calamities such as earthquakes, typhoons, and floods.

According to Republic Act No. 10121, or the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010, a “state of calamity”  is defined as “a condition involving mass casualty and/or major damages to property, disruption of means of livelihoods, roads and normal way of life of people in the affected areas as a result of the occurrence of natural or human-induced hazard.”
The MAP Holistic Plan embodies “a comprehensive program consisting of short, medium and long-term measures to provide the soonest relief with administrative and management measures, and long-term sustainability through structural interventions, particularly transportation infrastructures focused on mass public transportation.”

The Plan is anchored upon the basic affirmation that “this traffic crisis is the result of a failure in traffic management, and a paradigm shift in road and traffic management policies and practices is essential.” Equally important, it asserts: “Policy must reflect the reality that road space is a finite public resource which must be judiciously and efficiently used to move people, instead of private vehicles. There must be a realization that high occupancy in conveyances and uninterrupted vehicle flow are the keys to higher commuter throughput.”

The MAP cites the Busway pilot project initiated by its transportation and infrastructure committee during the pandemic in 2020. With only 550 buses fielded by a private consortium, record ridership levels were attained. As reported by the Department of Transportation (DOTr), the EDSA Busway served 47.104 million riders in 2021 and a peak daily ridership of 404,010 in October 2022.  
As proposed by the MAP, Metro Manila will be organized into four Traffic Management Zones to be headed by a qualified Zone Traffic Manager who shall be responsible for traffic management in their respective zone, and report and be accountable to a Traffic Czar.

MAP also calls for the implementation of the National Transport Plan’s proposals to “enhance non-motorized mobility with the creation and expansion of sidewalks and cycling network; institute travel demand management through peak-hour travel pricing of public transport, such that non-peak hours shall have lower charges; implement road congestion charges on private vehicles in high-volume traffic routes during peak travel hours; rationalize the jeepney and bus franchising system to institute a one-route, one-franchise system to optimize the efficiency and utilization of vital commuter corridors.”