Tag: DOTC

Mar Roxas doomed his own presidential bid by being soft on PNoy’s failures

April 2, 2016 Ilda 11 Comments

If popularity surveys are to be believed, Presidential candidate Mar Roxas is not very popular among the voters. He has consistently landed on the 4th spot in most of the surveys conducted since the first popularity surveys were commissioned for these Presidential Elections. He is even behind Vice President Jejomar Binay despite the latter being…

Government, Politics

Daang Matuwid brought the Philippines straight down the highway to hell

February 5, 2016February 6, 2016 Ilda 42 Comments

Daang Matuwid. What the hell does it mean? Its literal translation in English is “straight path”. Without any context, it does not make a lot of sense. Straight path to where, exactly? However, its ambiguity helped launch the Presidency of a non-performing lawmaker Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III back in 2010. A lot of people…

Crime, Development, Government, Politics

350 kph bullet train to link Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Bandung

January 21, 2016 benign0 7 Comments

Construction of a high-speed train line allowing travel between Jakarta and Bandung at speeds of up to 350 kilometres per hour has started. The USD 5.6 billion project is a key component of a long-overdue programme to upgrade decrepit infrastructure being spurred by Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Indonesia lacks a mass-transport system, forcing its increasingly…

Development, Lifestyle, Tech Talk

Travellers wary of rampant bullet-planting scams in the Philippines’ Ninoy Aquino International Airport!

November 1, 2015January 2, 2023 benign0 26 Comments

The Philippines’ latest national embarrassment — the bullet-planting scamming that is gripping the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) — has many people on-edge. The modus operandi of this recently-publicised racket making the rounds in social media involves bullets being inserted in travellers’ luggage and then “discovered” by airport officials who then give the victims the…

Civics, Crime, Culture, Government

Six More Years Of What Exactly? Heavy Traffic and Floods?

September 9, 2015 P. Farol 12 Comments

I guess it has already been said that it’s really a bad idea for Mar Roxas to campaign on the premise of continuing the Aquino administration’s Daang Matuwid. People are wondering, isn’t he his own man yet? Last night, a heavy down pour late in the afternoon or early evening (depending on where you were)…

Development, Economy, Government, Politics, Society

Manila commuters’ nightmare: SM City ‘grand central station’ plans for MRT and LRT lines now in pieces!

June 12, 2014 benign0 27 Comments

What was once a grand plan to construct what could have been considered Manila’s first true “Grand Central Station” near SM North EDSA Mall has stalled and has literally broken up into little pieces that will leave commuters, as usual, grasping the short end of the stick. The station would have linked tracks being built…

Development, Government, Lifestyle, Politics

Ban on provincial buses on Metro Manila roads made commuting a living hell

August 8, 2013 Ilda 47 Comments

They say nothing dies harder than a bad idea. That saying is nowhere truer than in the Philippines where bad ideas replace one bad idea after another. What’s worse is that the bad ideas often come from government agencies that affect millions of Filipinos and make their lives a living hell. No wonder international best…

Development, Government, Politics

Philippine Public Transportation and Metro Manila’s Squatters

July 16, 2013July 16, 2013 P. Farol 27 Comments

On the wayside of an outrage fiesta over Metro Manila’s teeming population of squatters, people seem to have missed a gaily colored solution piñata: public transportation. After people have salved their poverty butthurt and middle-class angst, perhaps it would be a good idea to revisit a column in Manila Standard called “Happy Hour” where it…

Development, Government