By Ken Abante

Why is MMDA Acting Chairman Romando Artes directly contradicting President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s recent policy pronouncement to prioritize active transportation?

The Move As One Coalition is alarmed at the news from MMDA Acting Chairman Romando Artes that MMDA is studying the removal of bicycle lanes from EDSA. In doing so, Artes is directly contradicting President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s recent policy pronouncement to prioritize active transportation as part of the comprehensive solutions to the transportation crisis. He is also hindering the fulfillment of a campaign promise of President Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte to make bike lanes permanent.
The Coalition asserts that removing bike lanes on EDSA, or anywhere else in the country for that matter, is a terrible idea for the following reasons:

1. It goes against the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2023-2028.

The PDP 2023-2028 contains the declaration that: “Pedestrians and cyclists will be accorded highest priority in the hierarchy of road users [emphasis supplied]. Provisions for active mobility will be integrated into the transportation system. Existing thoroughfares and bridges will be redesigned and retrofitted for the protection and expansion of bikers and pedestrians.”
2. It shows that MMDA did not learn anything from the three-day study tour in April 2023 to the Netherlands, the so-called bicycle capital of the world.
Artes, nine Metro Manila mayors, and one vice mayor “toured the Netherlands … to study … the country’s best practices in their bicycle system and urban mobility that can be used in the Philippine setting,” reports the Philippine Daily Inquirer. If the bike lanes on EDSA are removed, then the study tour would be an expensive junket and a terrible waste of the taxpayer money that funded the trip as well as the salaries of Artes and Undersecretary Frisco S. San Juan, Jr. while they were on the study tour.
3. It violates the right of many Filipinos who own bicycles to safe and convenient mobility.
Social Weather Stations data shows that as of March 2023, 24% of Filipino households nationwide own bicycles. The resulting ratio of bicycle owners to car owners is 4:1.
The Coalition calls on Artes to fully adhere to President Marcos Jr.’s policy to support active transportation and to honor the president and vice-president’s campaign promise to make bike lanes permanent in the country. This includes Artes’ rethinking of his ill-conceived ban on light electric vehicles, an important mode of transportation for the 94% of Filipinos who do not own cars.
We urge Artes to devote his time and energies as a public official, whose salary is paid by taxpayers, to the safe and sustainable mobility of this supermajority, many of whom believed President Marcos Jr.’s promise to prioritize them in his transportation agenda.