IT now takes about two hours to travel by car from Cubao, Quezon City, to Makati, during the rush hour in the morning. Last Saturday, in an interview, President Duterte said: “You just wait. Things will improve. Maybe, God willing, by December, smooth sailing na. You don’t have to worry about traffic. Cubao and Makati is just about five minutes away.”
Sen. Panfilo Lacson had this wry comment: “If PRRD delivers on just two promises he recently made – to cut travel time from Cubao to Makati to five minutes within six months and to eliminate flight delays at NAIA (Ninoy Aquino International Airport) within one month, for being superhuman, he deserves to be president for life.”
Lacson’s comment referred to the utter impossibility of solving the two problems within the time frames mentioned by the President. Even without traffic, a car would have to travel 120 kilometers per hour to cover the 12 kilometers from Cubao in Quezon City to Ayala Ave. in Makati. As for NAIA, the flight delays are bound to continue as its single long runway simply cannot accommodate many incoming and outgoing flights.
President Duterte, however, has long been known for his colorful language. He loves to use metaphors and other figures of speech. In this case, he was voicing a hyperbole, an exaggeration, to emphasize a point – his determination to do something, however drastic, to solve a nagging problem.
We recall his campaign promise to eliminate the drug problem within three months, later extended to six months, and finally to the end of his term, as the problem, he discovered, was so much bigger than he thought. But the people have accepted his admission of failure because of the drug problem’s enormity and appreciate instead the herculean efforts to stop it that continue to this day.
Now, he has turned his attention to the problem of EDSA. The Metro Manila Development Authority has proposed a number of changes to ease traffic, including the removal of provincial bus terminals on EDSA, mostly in the Cubao area. This should keep out buses which often stop along the way to let passengers off. Many elevated highways and, very soon, a subway, should divert much of the present traffic away from EDSA.
But President Duterte seemed so sure of himself when he said it will all be better by December. “It is possible the President is planning something,” presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said. “Otherwise why would he say that it will be only five-minute travel?”
Hyperbolic, it may be, but now that the President has voiced his determination to solve the EDSA traffic problem, we should see some action. Whenever the President speaks, the people in the government agency concerned had better listen and think and plan and take action. Or else, they might next hear the President urging them to resign.
We may not solve the EDSA problem in six months. Or the NAIA problem within one. But we should now see the concerned officials moving as they never did before. They might not totally solve the problem but they will have mitigated it or started on a real solution that may take longer but will ultimately solve the problem.
