By PAULA BIEN VALERO
Presidential Adviser on Poverty Alleviation Secretary Lorenzo “Larry” Gadon, presented his proposal to ease the infamous heavy traffic of the Philippines at his press conference on May 22, at Max’s Restaurant in Quezon City.
Secretary Gadon said he submitted a comprehensive plan to ease traffic especially in Metro Manila at the Traffic Summit held last April 10, adding that this proposal includes promising solutions that can be implemented without cost to the government.
“Kahit na anong bantay mo diyan sa traffic regulations na yan, kung araw-araw nadadagdagan ang mga sasakyan kung wala naman bagong kalsada, eh talagang mag ta-traffic at mag ta-traffic pa din,” said Gadon.
Secretary Gadon’s proposal involves implementing alternating day-offs to the sectors that cause major traffic to the roads of Manila. Based on his proposal, the main solution is to deduct a day from schools that cause the heaviest flow of traffic during rush hours and have the associations of the schools handle the delegation of the day that they skipped in order to solve the traffic flow.
It was also discussed that cities with big business centers, like Makati, will be divided into 4 sectors and will open at different hours in order to avoid having office personnel come to work at the same time to avoid the heavy influx of vehicles.
Another sector that is included in the proposal is the malls. Malls are proposed to have two days off a month, these hours that the day-off will take can be allocated to the days that they are open to catch up for their potential losses when their day-off takes place.
The proposed solution would not need a budget or a technical team to implement this since this can be handled internally by the associations assigned to these sectors. For example, the Philippine Association of Private Schools, Colleges, and Universities (PAPSCU) can delegate the day-offs of the schools in order to handle this proposal smoothly.
The business sector has the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) to handle the delegation of the schedule, and the Philippine Retailers Association for the malls.
In the press conference, it was emphasized that this solution requires no budget at all and can be handled by the said associations that will implement this privately and delegate the days to their sectors in an orderly manner.
Secretary Gadon recalled that during the time of President Bongbong’s father, the late President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, daylight saving time was imposed as a way of conserving electricity.
In this generation, he said, we can opt to implement the traffic-saving time.
Workers who heard about Gadon’s proposal said that it is also a way to alleviate poverty because heavy traffic takes a toll on transportation expenses and time wasted which can be used for more productive endeavors.
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