I have lived in Manila long enough to accept that traffic is part of the deal. Gridlock is the price of living here, and every driver has quietly agreed that the trip home takes twice as long as it should. What I cannot accept is the feeling, stronger every year, that our enforcers are more interested in catching drivers than in moving them. Somewhere along the way the job changed. The painted line now matters more than the traffic it was drawn to organize.
The proof is on every street. Buses stop wherever a hand goes up. In the middle of a moving lane, a jeepney drops off six passengers and waits for a seventh. At five in the afternoon, a delivery truck parks across a whole road as if it owns the pavement, while up ahead three lanes have become two because a car owner decided the curb was his. All of this matters less, somehow, than a tire that touched a white line for two seconds while its driver was getting around a stalled truck.
After enough years behind the wheel, you learn where they wait. Almost never on the wide roads, where a driver has room to think. The favorite spots are the tight stretches where the road narrows, the choices run out, and the vehicle in front stops without warning. You cross the line by half a meter to keep the fifty cars behind you from getting stuck, and there he is, stepping out from behind a post with the timing of a man who has done this a thousand times.
You have to admire the teamwork. One man watches, another waves you over, a third has the ticket half written before your window is all the way down. It is the only part of Manila traffic management that runs on schedule. Think about what that team could do at a locked intersection, or against the buses that turned an avenue into a terminal. The skill is there. It has just been aimed at something that pays better.
Now the numbers. In January, the MMDA Traffic Ticket Management Division released its top five violations for 2025. Illegal turning led the list, reported the Inquirer on January 10, followed by unattended illegal parking, disregarding traffic signs, number coding, and attended illegal parking. GMA News reported that the total was roughly the same as in 2024. The same violations top the chart in the same order year after year, and the agency treats this as a report card instead of a warning. The same violations top the chart in the same order year after year.
Look at the price list. Illegal turning costs ₱150. Disregarding traffic signs costs ₱1,000. That third category is also the loosest one on the books. The MMDA’s own guidance, quoted by the Inquirer in 2017, says swerving is not a violation by itself, but crossing a solid line without care can be written up as reckless driving, or as disregarding traffic signs where a sign says so. A vague rule, an expensive fine, and one man on the corner deciding which is which.
Here is the part that should end the argument. In October 2023, the MMDA chief told reporters he had ordered enforcers to stop ticketing simple moving violations during rush hours from November 13 to January 8 because pulling a driver over “will surely cause a traffic bottleneck.” The agency knows. Every apprehension in heavy traffic makes the traffic worse, and the practice can be switched off for eight weeks when the season calls for it. The other forty-four weeks are a choice.
There are good enforcers. I have seen them in the rain untangling a junction nobody paid them enough to untangle, waving drivers through instead of waving them over. They are the ones this setup insults most because they have nothing to count.
I have no quarrel with traffic laws. Solid lines exist for good reasons, and drivers should respect them. My quarrel is with an enforcement culture that measures success by tickets written instead of jams prevented, and that teaches the ordinary Filipino to read the law as a price list. The fine is survivable. The lesson is what stays.
Until that changes, Manila drivers will keep believing that the city’s most efficient office is the one nobody ever created—the Solid Lane Authority—whose great achievement is proving that a strip of white paint can get more attention than the thousands of people stuck behind it.
Sa Maynila, mas binabantayan pa ang pintura sa kalsada kaysa sa taong nakaipit dito.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are intended to encourage public discussion on governance and national issues. They do not represent any official position of the institutions the author may be affiliated with.
About the Author
Paul Y. Chua, PhD, holds doctoral degrees in Fiscal Management and Peace and Security, and a master’s degree in National Security Administration. He writes on Philippine governance, national security, transportation, and public policy.
