Manila is a mess

One can easily see how much time is wasted--both for truckers and commuters--with this Manila Truck-mageddon. Photo by author

In all my years of commuting to and from Manila, I have never encountered traffic jams as irritating and tiresome as what we're having now. The line of trucks queued along Roxas Boulevard, originating from the Port Area and stretching as far back as Baclaran, is a sight to behold--and a total annoyance for most people.

It now takes up to three hours to travel from the suburbs of Paranaque to the country's capital; one can actually reach Hong Kong faster by plane. As a result, commuters are more irritable, employees and students are crankier, and drivers are more "tired-er" than ever.

Most people say it's due to the truck ban being enforced by the city government, while Mayor Erap and Vice Isko will have none of it. Economic experts, on the other hand, say it's due to the congestion of containers at the port, while truckers say they can't move out the empty containers because of the ban.

Whatever the reasons, those with authority ought to stop yammering, stop pointing fingers at each other, and start working together to fix the problem.

Anyone with enough common sense ought to see that working together is the best solution to untangle this mess.

According to Mayor Erap, the ban has "benefited many others" while Vice Isko says that truckers ought to "behave." Yeah right. Anyone can see that more people are affected by the ban and it's not long until ordinary folk will go crazy with traffic this bad. Photo by author

posted from Bloggeroid