Tag: Public Transport

Holiday Bus Service: a long-overdue modernisation of Metro Manila bus transport

December 8, 2015December 8, 2015 benign0 7 Comments

Filipinos are too quick to slam the efforts of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) to provide an alternative public transport option to Metro Manilans. The “Holiday Bus Service” is actually a good idea. Half-baked perhaps, but a good one that possibly needs more time in…

Development, Lifestyle

Duterte’s dangerous experiment: Vigilantism as state-sanctioned doctrine

December 4, 2015 benign0 32 Comments

We all have bad experiences dealing with other people. Some of those experiences make us wish we could just take a gun and shoot whoever had caused those bad experiences. But we don’t because there are also consequences for doing so. Perhaps in the case of the Philippines, presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte and what he’s…

Crime, Culture, Development, Politics, Society, The South

Rodgrigo Duterte is wrong: There is a lot of room to be ‘iron fisted’ legally!

November 27, 2015 benign0 45 Comments

I make no secret of my own preference for iron-fisted rule. In the Philippines, there is a lot of room to implement that within the framework of the law simply by consistently applying said law. Take that quintessential Filipino icon, the jeepney. By itself the jeepney single-handedly epitomises the Philippines’ culture of criminality. The state…

Crime, Culture, Government, Politics, Society

Imagining a truly world-class Metro Manila

November 25, 2015November 25, 2015 benign0 17 Comments

The recently-concluded Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Metro Manila proved that to get the best results out of the Philippines’ premiere metropolis, its residents need to be excluded from major events like these. This is quite ironic considering the theme of APEC Manila 2015 was inclusion — getting as many ordinary Filipinos in…

Civics, Development, Lifestyle, Society

Filipinos need to get off the loser path and onto the road to real progress

November 10, 2015November 10, 2015 benign0 22 Comments

How did the Philippines get to where it is now? It is a wretched society, unable to defend itself from foreign and natural threats, paralysed by its own enormous population, and staring at a future hobbled by a lack of the infrastructure to get it down the right road. Yet the country, over much of…

Development, Economy, Society

In just 6 years, Noynoy Aquino’s record of failure is now worse than all of the Marcos years

October 14, 2015October 14, 2015 Ilda 488 Comments

Filipinos who can’t stop talking about the “horrors” of the Martial Law years under the late former President Ferdinand Marcos are starting to come across as hopeless and desperate for attention. While the atrocities against the victims should be condemned, their cases were already brought to court and won compensation. It is now time to…

Crime, Development, Government, Society

5 ways to decongest Metro Manila traffic

September 11, 2015November 26, 2022 Ilda 87 Comments

After neglecting the problem for nearly six years, it seems like the current government under President Benigno Simeon Aquino is finally addressing or at least acknowledging Metro Manila traffic congestion specially along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) – the notorious highway once famous for street revolutions but is now looking more and more like…

Civics, Development, Government, Lifestyle, Politics, Society

So Where Is The ‘Straight Path’ Headed?

September 10, 2015 Grimwald 17 Comments

You can read the Tagalog version of this article here… Ladies and gentlemen, it is 2015. Just a few more months from now before 2016 comes along and we will be given the opportunity to select a new leader that can lead us to progress. The problem is, so far though, where have we gotten…

Crime, Development, Government, Media, Politics, Society, The South