Danger zone for students

I am writing to inquire whether barangay or city officials have the right to decide how streets—which are paved and maintained with people’s taxes—are used. As far as I know, they are supposed to be used as roads, not as terminals or, worse, parking lots.

While most of the food stalls on R. Papa Street have moved elsewhere—to sidewalks, or other streets, perhaps—the spaces vacated by them have not been restored as roadways for vehicle use. R. Papa, as well as P. Paredes and P. Campa streets are now used as open parking lots, with the barangay tanod and volunteers acting as parking attendants. The corners of Recto Street along Morayta and S.H. Loyola streets have been used as jeepney terminals for at least 10 years now. Worse, they have also been turned into garbage disposal sites and hiding places for thieves and pickpockets.

There are at least 180,000 students in the University Belt, all young people. They should be the best 180,000 reasons to keep the “U-belt” a safe and clean pedestrian area.  But the sidewalks are too narrow, blocked or nonexistent. So people have to walk on the streets. But the streets are messy and polluted.

Why can’t Manila Mayor Fred Lim do anything to permanently free the U-belt streets from traffic obstructions? Why can’t anyone do anything about the jeepney terminals? These have all contributed to the long-running image of the U-belt being “dirty, dangerous and disorganized” (according to a 2000 UP-UE research).

Can’t anyone or any agency—the city of Manila, the Department of Interior and Local Government, the Department of Public Works and Highways, or the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority—put some order in the streets of the U-belt?

Please help.

—A.L. DE LEON,

S.H. Loyola Street,

Barangay 395, Sampaloc, Manila