In many countries, most people don’t drive cars. They take mass transport that is efficient, clean and runs on time.

Before the Second World War, Manila had the tramvia, an electrified bus running along defined routes, attached to an overhead cable from which it draws power. But after the war, Manila became unrecognizable with bombed-out buildings and streets. The rebuilding was haphazard. The capital city as planned by architect Daniel Burnham did not materialize, due to many factors, including the failure to plan and the hasty withdrawal of America from the Philippines, leaving it to fend for itself.

Now we are faced with poorly planned/haphazard cities, numerous squatter colonies and a rather primitive mass transport system leading to crowding, road congestion and hours-long traffic jams, which does not make for good quality of life.

What used to take just 30 minutes to drive to now becomes two hours or more. Metro Manila traffic is choking the life out of its citizens. We spend more time on the road than actually living, working and socializing. The pollution resulting from dense traffic is literally killing us. Those with pre-existing chronic lung diseases are the most affected. But nobody is exempt from developing lung disease from inhaling all the pollutants in the air. The unfortunate security guard who supervised traffic at the lobby of a big hospital for decades had to retire due to developing pollution-related chronic lung disease which ultimately killed him.

Yet, our government doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by it all. It even gives incentives to car manufacturers to set up shop when it should be developing more efficient mass transport systems such as trains, either overhead or underground.

Meanwhile, the task of building skyways and airports was given to private corporations which have to charge tolls and administrative charges to recover their investments. But isn’t government supposed to be doing that? Isn’t that why we pay taxes, fees and other charges so government can spend the money for the welfare of its citizens?

Traffic has become worse that government has resorted to limiting cars from running on certain days. The number coding system hasn’t really made traffic less frustrating but it added more vehicles on the roads or parked on streets for folks to get around the coding scheme.

With the advent of electric vehicles which are non-polluting, the government has given incentives to EV buyers in the form of exemption from the number coding scheme. It seems to be working as sales of EVs have skyrocketed, especially nowadays with the looming threat of oil shortage due to the Middle East conflict now threatening to plunge the world into recession.

But now that EV sales are taking off, the government wants to lift the coding exemption. Our “wise” officials now think EVs should no longer be exempt just as when we are starting to see reductions in air pollutants from replacing combustion-powered vehicles with EVs.

Sorry but that kind of thinking is so hare-brained. Not only are EVs reducing pollution, they are going to keep people from buying more vehicles since they can use their EVs every day. Instead of having just one car (an EV), once the exemption from coding is lifted, people will still buy several internal combustion-engined cars to get around the coding scheme. Then, we’re back to the old dilemma of having too many cars on the streets, both running and parked for lack of owners’ garages.

I’m not saying EVs are the end-all or be-all for traffic management. We will have too many cars in the not-so-distant future if government doesn’t get serious about an efficient transport system that is also. Meanwhile we should prioritize EVs to reduce vehicular pollution.

We should also get serious about car pooling and prescribing different work schedules to reduce traffic congestion. Cities should be planned so that there are decent living quarters/homes near offices and factories for daily wage workers who should not have to spend four hours or more a day commuting. The people’s quality of life should not suffer due to the government’s inefficiency, poor planning and general ineptness.

Perhaps we should take a cue from Indonesia where the government planned and is now building a new capital city due to its capital, Jakarta, sinking at an alarming rate. The traffic congestion in Jakarta is legendary. We once spent four hours travelling a few blocks. We should have just walked to arrive earlier. The new capital should be well-planned, hopefully with provisions for nearby housing that workers can just walk to work rather than stew in traffic for hours.

This is probably just daydreaming, but hey, we should be able to dream and hope that someday, living in Metro Manila will be more ideal and a lot less stressful.