HAS EITHER the far-seeing Mayor Edsa Santiago of the City of San Fernando and the far-reaching Mayor ‘Pogi’ Lazatin of Angeles City counted the cost of a three-hour traffic jam? Regardless, have they considered any long-range plan to mitigate, if not avoid totally, such man-inflicted disaster? It should matter to good governance. The conventional wisdom is that public officials are supposed to solve problems.
Former San Fernando Mayor Pat Guevarra once told local journalists that traffic is a sign of progress. Easy pol talk. Or is it the curse of progress that needs to be addressed better, considering how it is going from bad to worse, notwithstanding the ubiquitous traffic aides?
The late economist Ernst Schumaker once said that the smart person solves problems, the genius avoids them. It’s time to show up who’s who, traffic- wise, where we elect chief executives.
Last Saturday was a perfect storm for such traffic nightmares in their cities. It was raining, not heavily but with nary a break for hours ,or so it seemed. It was the right time for shopping and dining out. There were no intimidating police checkpoints .It was the start of a weekend that beckoned like oasis in the desert.
If churchgoers can trigger horrendous traffic jams like mall goers did that day in the two cities , the Second Coming would be nearer than what the widely read columnist Ding Cervantes has been writing about in his eschatology series.
Either they miss or ignore his point, blame it on the spirit of the season. Good times make the better times irrelevant and uninteresting. Never mind if one sat in the car for hours on end in an endless ,wicked traffic snarl that resembled organized chaos. A car was invented, after all, as a convenient place to sit (or stew) in a traffic jam.
In all probability, ‘repent’, which was Cervantes’ underlying message, was far from everybody’s mind. The more practical, earth-fixed encouragement to ‘eat, buy and be merry’ in the holiday season was simply irresistible. Of course, you had to find a slot to squeeze in your car first to make sure those objectives happen.
Heaven will understand. The rapture, as many Christians believe, will have to be rescheduled. Something earthly was both urgent and important. The pandemic has taken a break, and consumers were finally unshackled after more than two years of virtual house arrest, courtesy of the many lockdowns of various types. The spirit might be unwilling, but sale was, ooh to good to pass up on.
So thousands of shoppers flocked to the malls as if under the spell of a shopping god. So there were the resulting traffic jams where cars moved by a couple of inches every few seconds in an age in which ,ironically, speed is the mantra. Motorization which had been hailed by glib car merchants as a miracle for Central Luzon, particularly in Pampanga, had turned into a momentary canard. Can you blame a local politician for being less impressed by car merchants?
Way back, a priest in one parish church in San Fernando had put up a huge tarpaulin at the church façade to remind his parishioners, first, and the passersby, second, to make a clear distinction between what is secular and what is spiritual. “The mall is for shopping’, it said, the church is for worshipping”. Has the distinction been blurred?
Whether he succeeded in making his point or not, that remains to be seen. Last Saturday’s gridlocks in the cities were not inspiring at all though. Priest and pastors may need to review their messages. Traffic jams, or the things that drive them, may have spiritual undercurrents. Or have the religious leaders somehow acquiesced to the malls co-opting their pulpits?The roads to the malls are paved with good intentions, and traffic jams could only be one of them.
Local governments, including the police, should revisit their traffic management plans, if any. Not just knee-jerk tactical responses but facts-based strategies. In the province’s second city, which has been touted recently by the outgoing mayor as ‘the home of the future, fringes of the roads near the malls were readily converted into parking lots. If that is the version of a fading vision for the future ,Fernandinos have to pray more and vote more intelligently. If traffic is progress, more of it is coming .Future -blind politicians should be off the list.
The traffic problem that day was nearly the same in Angeles City, although it seemed more under control. Maybe it’s how the malls are dispersed that made the difference. Or there were more service roads. Could the aides’ skills have made the difference, too? Still, the horrendous traffic slow-grind must have been triggered by a wide range of mall– the modern definition of community– consumer activities. The more colorful half -Robredo and half-Bongbong- inspired uniform- sporting traffic aides were simply no match for the volume of the traffic flow or the flagrant stupidity of many behind the wheels. Matter over mind. The traffic aides of both cities may have more than earned their keeps in doing their job.
Obviously, the mayor alone cannot solve or mitigate this modern -day problem. The input of every stakeholder in the community is required, from the malls to the consumers, from the public transportation agencies to the operators of the expressway, from the police to the traffic aides. Training, coordination and strategic planning should be the front and center of it all. As one official put its ,one mind cannot be as bright or effective as ours put together at work.
Regrettably, this was not evident last Saturday.
