(Mark Balmores/MANILA BULLETIN)

While Metro Manila may be notorious for its perennial heavy traffic, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) maintained that it was still far from being the worst in the world.

Caloocan 2nd district Rep. Mitch Cajayon-Uy, the designated budget sponsor of the MMDA’s proposed 2025 budget during the plenary debates, said Metro Manila has the 15th worst traffic in the world, based on the agency’s statistics.

“There’s room to improve, but based on MMDA’s statistics, we will be 15th so that’s a lot better than worst,” said Northern Samar 1st district Rep. Paul Daza.

Daza, during his interpellation, brought up Metro Manila’s ranking in the 2023 Traffic Index by transportation data company TomTom Traffic.

“We all remember, earlier this year, isang (an) online platform called Metro Manila, the worst traffic in the world,” he said.

Based on the report, Metro Manila had the worst traffic last year, beating 386 other metro areas worldwide. 

On average, it takes 25 minutes and 30 seconds to drive for 10 kilometers across the capital region, which is 50 seconds slower than its 2022 record, it said.

The MMDA has cast doubt on this report’s methodology. 

Cajayon-Uy, specifically, pointed out that the average speed in Metro Manila is 24.46 kilometers per hour (kph) despite a traffic volume of 3.6 million vehicles per day.

“Some of the Metro Manila legislators had been in Thailand. And if we may mention, Thailand is worse than our country. So, even [with] the influx of vehicles we can say that we’re still better than [them],” she shared.

Meanwhile, Daza said he raised this concern to put into record that the “world’s worst” label on Metro Manila was erroneous. 

“I don’t think that serves us well if it’s not accurate,” he underscored.