Move People, Not Just Cars

The Philippines encounters a massive public transport shortage.

via Move As One Research and Materials on the Philippine Transportation System Project

As the pandemic arises, the situation worsens and lots of Filipinos are experiencing and affected by this crisis. Over the past decade, the Philippine government focused and invested mostly in building road-based infrastructure and it is not enough for the people, plants, and animals who use these roads as public space.

The national and local government must spend its greater share of their time and budget on improving road-based public transport supply and capacity as well as active transport infrastructure to be able to have a fast and frequent transit system. The group reviewed and developed an open-source dataset of road-based programs and projects from the country's budget, spending, and audit papers from 2010 to 2021 to assess the Philippine government's transportation infrastructure investment objectives.

From 1997 through 2019, a time series of road-based revenue, including revenues from oil, motor vehicles, and other fees levied by road agencies. These were all based on publicly available reports on the Department of Finance's (DOF), Bureau of the Treasury's (BTR), and Bureau of Local Government Finance's (BLGF) websites (BLGF). A big percentage of the PHP 2.8 Trillion National Budget was allocated to the Road-based infrastructures such as road constructions, widening, and maintenance. On the other hand, only a very small percentage was used for the road-based public transport budget.

Throughout the past decade, the approach used was heavily centered on improving road infrastructures and shows neglect of the public sector of transportation. All in all, the budget distribution exhibits a very car-centric method instead of a people-friendly one.

. . .the budget distribution exhibits a very car-centric method instead of a people-friendly one.

Altogether, the data showed that the budget for road-based infrastructures and road-based transportation was not equally distributed. A supposedly budget of 2.8 trillion PHP was used mostly for road constructions, widening, and maintenance. On the other hand, only a portion of the said budget was put to the expansion of the capacity and supplies of public transport. This showed that the budget went to car-centric improvements projects more than the mobility of people. To help mitigate this problem, they should identify what the real problem is and create a realistic and attainable solution for them to have a budget that is equally met.