Problem with emergency powers to solve traffic mess

Metro Manila Development Authority acting general manager Tim Orbos has come up with a self-deprecating idea that admits his agency cannot cope with the demanding task of instilling discipline among motorists in Metro Manila (“MMDA to outsource traffic aide jobs”, Inquirer Metro, 1/27/17).  He says his work force is already spread too “thin,” and he needs more people to manage traffic flow on major thoroughfares.

Is Orbos really that obtuse? Is he not aware of so many complaints from motorists about MMDA traffic enforcers doing nothing in clusters of five to 10 around Metro Manila? We have often wondered what the heck they were up to in places where traffic was relatively flowing and needed no “managing”; but where traffic was in a gridlock, no enforcer was ever there to untangle the mess.

Orbos himself has admitted, to his  own consternation, that many of his men are “tamad,” but he cannot fire them just like that. “Due process” is really such a bitch even where scumbags are involved.

His solution? Hire more tamad traffic aides in the hope that some of them might just mercifully be persuaded to do their job properly? Outsourcing their employment is no guarantee for efficiency if the MMDA continues to be run by fair-haired boys who are themselves at their wits’ end when it comes to instilling discipline, not only among motorists but, more importantly,  among their own personnel on the ground.

Unless the “emergency powers”  legislation is passed soon to authorize MMDA to declare virtual “martial law” against “pasaway” motorists and its own pasaway law enforcement people alike,  Metro Manilans will just have to put up with the current no-win situation. The problem is, the proposed legislation is  mainly  focused on very ambitious  “infrastructure projects” that entail gargantuan budgetary allotments —  just another opportunity for massive graft and corruption, not to mention plunder.

SCARLET S. SYTANGCO, sssytangco@gmail.com