I read on Twitter that carmageddon was back last Friday, the eve of the Alert Level 3 (a.k.a loosening of lockdown to whatever) implementation. I am thankful that big events are still not allowed or else I would have been one of those suffering from a three-hour traffic jam on EDSA.

I have written numerous pieces about Metro Manila traffic and the car-centric culture that we have because our government since the beginning of time did not prioritize public transportation and kept on pandering to the oligarchs and the moneyed class–the ones who can afford to buy private cars. The Philippines was the first one to have a light railway transit in ASEAN, which was financed by foreign loans and helped the Marcoses get richer by the minute (just read between the lines).

Manila in 1984, during the time of Ferdinand Marcos, oversaw construction of the first electric rail line in ASEAN, but this system subsequently suffered from a lack of decent maintenance bringing a raft of problems. Finally it was repaired and renovated; in 2004 a second LRT line was added, and this was followed in 2005 by three MRT lines. Currently a one-line LRT expansion is in the planning stages. At present the entire rail system extends 47.9 kilometers.

Living ASEAN

So of course it was just a piece of trophy infrastructure project. Subsequent administrations did not prioritize public transport, and thus, we got left behind. Imagine, we were ahead of Singapore by three years and look at them now! I can get around Singapore without taxis most of the time there. Riding the bus there is not like going into a battlefield like here.

We used to have a 1,100-km railway from Manila to Legazpi City in Albay and my father used to take the train daily from Makati (where they lived during their first years of marriage) to UP Los Baños where he was a research assistant). It was doable. The Philippine National Railway system fell into disrepair because of this neglect and wrong priorities of past administrations. Every year we get choked by cars on highways and small backroads because we don’t have enough trains. Don’t talk to me about the controversies about the financing of these various train projects because I’ve been writing about them for 15 years or so and bugging Finance and Transport secretaries year in and year out about this and the corruption surrounding these projects is frustrating.

So now we have carmageddon that is getting worse every year. It takes a huge toll on our mental health and it is not easing up anytime soon. Not being able to chase stories physically (via in-person news coverage) is a major drag during this pandemic but it has helped me get off that carmageddon agony for almost two years. I realized now that life is super refreshing, despite Covid, without the traffic jam that sucked my soul.

AND if the plan to build my tiny house in my hometown pans out, I guess my travel time will be cut into half but I would have to drive 65 km one way everyday to Makati. Gas and toll would eat into my budget but it would be better for my sanity I guess. If I leave early enough from my hometown (like 6 am-ish) and leave Makati by 5pm, I would be home by 6:30 or 7pm. If I leave Makati at 10 pm, I would be in our hometown by 11 pm. From Makati to Quezon City pre-pandemic I would arrive home by 9 pm if I leave at 5 pm.

I did the hometown-Makati-hometown daily for a couple of years when the girls were still babies. I brought them to my mom’s house and we lived there for three months every summer to cool off because our old house in QC was like an oven. Plus playgrounds and grassy fields where they had picnics every afternoon were just walking distance–without cars and pollution. I drove from my hometown to Makati four times a week if I can help it. It wasn’t that much of a hassle

Now that I don’t have to be in Makati regularly because we already have a permanent Manila reporter (while I do my coverage of Southeast Asia remotely), I can limit my trips to Makati in a week. I could have my meetings and coverage/conferences confined all in one or two days. What would change though is I need to fly to Singapore frequently or somewhere else in Asia regularly (at least once a month, if things go according to plan). That can be solved by hiring my mom’s driver to drive me in my car to the airport and take the earliest flight out of Manila and have him drive me back again from the airport in Manila back to our hometown. Right now I’m spoiled by Grab.

I like living where I am now because everything is convenient since I have two supermarkets within walking distance from my apartment, I have a lot of food choices within Grab distance. If I need materials, furniture, appliance or whatever, I can just pop in the nearest SM (which is like 3 km). In my hometown, I am confined to whatever is available in our tiny mall and choices are very limited. No Grab.

But I have mountains, trees, fresh air, freedom to bike anywhere, walk to anywhere.

I think I’m at that stage where I’d choose to live a boring life than suffer 6 hours on the road daily. I’m done with night life of my youth (I’ve had plenty of those). I can finally leave Metro Manila for good.