This time, it's 'passenger'-coding

Battered from all sides by a public increasingly frustrated with its inability to solve the monstrous traffic jams along the city's major thoroughfares, particularly EDSA, the government appears to be at wit's end on how to deal with the situation.

      

It appears that the Cabinet had been deliberating on the revival of the previous "number-coding" system where vehicles with license plates ending in odd or even numbers would be banned from the roads three times a week. This "radical" proposal would have effectively prevented motorists from using their vehicles three times a week, in contrast to the current scheme where they are banned  from taking to the streets for only a day each week. With the proposed scheme getting flak from observers in both mainstream and social media, Malacañang has not mentioned it at all in subsequent pronouncements on the traffic problem.

      

But that does not mean that the government is simply letting the present chaotic situation go unresolved.

      

The Public Works department has indicated the government is seriously considering the proposal to prohibit vehicles with less than three passengers from plying EDSA during peak hours, from 7 to 10 in the morning at 5 to 8 in the afternoon.

       

However, before this plan can be implemented, the concerned government agencies should be able to identify and open alternate routes that can be used by vehicles with less than three passengers.

      

The problem is that there are obstructions in many alternative routes, such as  parked vehicles, basketball courts and unfinished flood control projects. Thus, the proposed 'passenger'-coding scheme has been opposed by vehicle owners who will be greatly inconvenienced by it.

      

We must emphasize that vehicle volume reduction should be just one component of possible short-term solutions to Metro Manila's traffic mess. The long-term solution, of course, is upgrading and expanding mass transport based on the light rail system, among others. To impose a vehicle volume reduction scheme without adequate public consultation and ensuring viable alternate routes is foolhardy and likely to cost the ruling party precious votes in an election period. –End-

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Real Madrid storming Phl

Filipinos being crazy with basketball, the big wins of Gilas Pilipinas over Japan, Russia and the US for a second-place finish in the recently concluded Jones Cup hogged sports headlines and even made it on the front pages of some newspapers.

On the collegiate front, the University of the Philippines Maroons dealt the University of the East Warriors an opening day shellacking in the Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines before handing La Salle’s Green Archers a shock loss.

With only one win to show in the entire 2014 season, UP finds itself with a 2-0 slate as the unlikely co-leader of University of Santo Tomas. The Maroons and the Tigers part ways on Sunday when they clash at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.

But there’s another big development in the sporting horizon that has nothing to do with basketball. It is the series of football clinics that three Real Madrid coaches will hold in all 16 regions of the Philippines soon.

In fact, former UP and Senate President Edgardo Angara will fly to Madrid, Spain for the signing of a memorandum of agreement with the Real Madrid Foundation that would seal the staging of the clinics, initially to be attended by 18 coaches and 180 students at the McKinley Hill Stadium in Taguig.

After the Manila leg, the clinics will then head to Baler, Aurora for Real Madrid’s mentoring of six local coaches and 60 students. Naturally, the Philippine football scene is abuzz with excitement over the rolling clinics that may pave the way in producing future members of the Philippine football team, the Azkals. –End-

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9/11 remembered

It’s been 14 years since the world witnessed horrific events of September 11,  2001, when two jetliners hijacked by the terrorists belonging to al-Qaeda headed by Osama bin Laden were deliberately crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City, killing 3000 people.

      

In the aftermath this terrorist act, the United States government launched a massive manhunt for the ringleaders of the plot. While some key leaders of al-Qaeda were hunted down and sent to prison, it was not until many years later that bin Laden was traced to a building in a remote area in Pakistan where he had been in hiding for at least a few years and killed by Navy SEALs. 

      

Today, on the very spot where the Twin Towers once stood, a new skyscraper now stands, a testament to the American resolve to combat terrorism and affirm freedom and democracy. On the site now also stands a memorial to the thousands of innocent people who died that fateful morning.

      

The terrorist organization responsible for 9/11 is said to have lost much of its clout over the years, replaced by a much more vicious group called the Islamic State (ISIS). This group now controls large areas in Syria and surrounding areas and is committed to establish an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East and elsewhere, and employs terrorist methods, including grisly murders of hostages, in pursuit of this goal.

      

Here in the Philippines, military intelligence indicates that several groups have declared support for ISIS. Among these are the Abu Sayyaf who had earned notoriety since the late 1990s for the very same terrorist acts, such as kidnapping, that ISIS now commits with seeming impunity.

      

What this tells us is that the global struggle against Islamic extremism is not yet over, 14 years later. Al-Qaeda may have been contained and reduced to only a few, but the same drive to kill innocent people and sacrifice lives at the altar of Islamic fundamentalism will go on unless the world takes a united stand and tells them that hell, no, we will not let you succeed. –End-

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Just solve it

There will only be band-aid solutions to the traffic problem in Metro Manila; instead, the government should focus on modernizing the transport system, asserts an urban planner. In other words, traffic congestion is only a symptom of a deficiency in the transport system.

      

Here's other valuable insights on this pressing problem that policy makers ought to seriously consider:

      

1) Opening up more roads will lead to more traffic. It is a trap that has lured many cities. Building expressways and widening roads will not solve the problem because it is an induced demand. Also known as latent demand, induced demand is a paradox which states that after supply increases, more of a good is consumed. This is the same logic postulated by the economic theory of supply and demand.

      

2) A modern and efficient transport system should carry goods and people. In both instances, the country’s transport system is poor and deficient. Right now, we are using trucks instead of trains in carrying containers and transporting people on informal systems, such as jeepneys, tricycles and FXs. We should build more mass-transit systems, such as trains and subways, to reduce reliance on cars and traditional systems. Archaic transport systems, such as the jeepneys and tricycles, have to be phased out from the main roads because they exacerbate pollution and congestion.

      

3) The Department of Science and Technology recently introduced a hybrid electric road train as its contribution to the development of a mass-transport system in the country. Developed by Filipino engineers with local components, the 40-meter train has a maximum speed of 50 kilometer per hour and is powered by hybrid diesel fuel and electric batteries. We should pursue similar initiatives.

      

4) Building a subway must be considered by the government because of the congestion on the ground. Previously subways were not practical because of the cost. But there are new technologies that have lessened the cost of drilling. On-road development is expensive because of the right-of-way acquisitions. We should embark on underground-based railways because aboveground rail-transport systems tend to cause the demise of commercial and business centers within their routes. –End-

      

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‘Suicide’ rate is highest in PHL

More than 25,000 Japanese took their own lives in 2014 or an average of 70 every day. However, Japan is second only to South Korea with the highest suicides rates in the world, reported the BBC.

Among those who committed suicide in Japan and South Korea were government officials who had been embroiled in scandals, especially allegations of corruption. A number of them jumped off buildings.

According to Wataru Nishida, a psychologist at Tokyo’s Temple University, many Japanese look at suicide “as a way of taking responsibility” akin to the Samurai practice of committing seppuku (self-decapitation) or the suicide missions of kamikaze pilots of World War 2.

For disgraced government officials and other high-profile personalities especially in Japan, suicide is seen as the ultimate public apology with its cathartic or restorative effect in redeeming family honor.

In the Philippines, suicide by dishonored public officials is practically unheard of with the exception of the suicide in 1987 of an ex-Cory Aquino minister and in 2011 of an Arroyo Cabinet member.

Par for the course for Filipino politicians with thick hides is to cling to their elective or appointive positions even if already caught with their hands inside the proverbial cookie jar.

Why commit suicide, many of the said politicians would ask, when they could hire the best lawyers to stave off being jailed and then continue living their pampered lives with the taxpayers’ money they’ve looted?

Yet, the suicide rate in the Philippines is higher than in South Korea and Japan. The suicide committed by millions of Filipino voters every three years by electing inept and corrupt leaders. –End-

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Is it fair to impose mandatory quotas of refugees?

Amid the huge influx of migrants to Europe, many of them fleeing war in Syria, the European Commission has proposed mandatory quotas for EU nations to take in refugees.

      

But is it fair?

      

Some EU member states, such as Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, have already voiced strong opposition to the idea of mandatory quotas.

But others, including Germany, say it is the only way to ensure a fair distribution of refugees among EU member states.

       

Under the EU proposal, 120,000 refugees will be relocated from Greece, Italy and Hungary—three EU nations at the forefront of the crisis due to transit routes across the Mediterranean and through the Balkans. The figure of 120,000 is on top of an earlier proposal by the EC to relocate 40,000 people in need of international protection from Italy and Greece.

      

Those in favor of taking in refugees cite the need to comply with the fundamental right to asylum of people fleeing from conflict or oppression. But those opposed to it say that the influx of refugees could be a burden on their existing social structures and processes. 

      

The quota system may be considered fair as the refugees would be distributed among other EU states based on each country's population, GDP, past asylum applications received and employment rate.

      

In other words, the quotas would depend on each country's capability to host the migrants.

      

Besides, the European Commission says that additional EU funding would be provided to countries taking in refugees and asylum-seekers.

      

At the same time, apart from taking in migrants in the spirit of solidarity, Europe should  actively support efforts to reach political solutions in Syria, Iraq and Libya, and to assist the countries now hosting the bulk of those fleeing civil war.

      

In the end, it's a matter of showing respect for human rights. –End-

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Mocking the electoral process

Those old enough to have been of voting age in the 1960s would no doubt remember a perennial losing candidate whose platform included banning typhoons and shielding Filipinos from the searing tropical heat by airconditioning the entire country. We cannot remember if he got any votes except from himself or his immediate family, but  we're sure that voters could immediately recognize a crackpot when they saw or heard one.

      

Today, nuisance candidates are still with us, so much so that some senators are pushing for amendments to the Omnibus Election Code to keep them at bay.

Senate Bill 2930 defines nuisance candidates as those who mock the election process. It seeks to slap with election offense candidates who cause confusion among voters by the similarity of names of registered bets as well as those who filed their certificates of candidacy in a bid to obtain money, profit or some other consideration.

      

It also considers as an election offense circumstances or acts that clearly demonstrate the candidate has no genuine intention to run for public office.

      

Our democracy provides for a system of free elections. That means anyone who meets the basic requirements—a certain age, a natural-born citizen, able to read and write, a registered voter, and must have lived in the country for a certain period of time—can run for public office at any level from the local to the national. Unfortunately, the Constitution is silent on whether candidates should also pass a sanity test administered by the National Center for Mental Health. 

      

Be that as it may, we urge voters to go beyond the basic qualifications of candidates and instead  scrutinize their academic background, training and experience in public service, and platform of governance. If a candidate can offer none of these, then he's certain to be nuisance candidate, and deserves to  be roundly repudiated come Election Day. –End-

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