By: Luis Emmanuel G. Fleta

Sometimes I think that us regular citizens are just mere sheep being led into place by government sheepdogs, and we’re not allowed to go astray or deviate.

While this analogy could go either way and that discipline and control is usually a good thing, it doesn’t mean that citizens should not have a voice and limited stake in issues that really matter.

As we all know, the 2019 South East Asian Games is ongoing (as of this writing). And this is one of the moments I realized just how much power citizens hold as a collective. Collectively, our combined opinions and the overall public sentiment can put so much pressure to the organizers and officials which eventually resulted to better output with regards to our hosting of the SEA Games.

However, that’s collectively. Individually? It’s a different story.

One of the best ways to have a hand in public decision-making is to have enough credibility. Sadly, credibility is oftentimes synonymous with wealth or more specifically, influence bought by money. In these times, government infrastructure projects and contracts get easily handed out to powerful and well-connected people. Ordinary people like those affected by Right-of-Way Acquisitions and Informal Settler Families - these are the people whose voices should be heard.

By Luis Emmanuel G. Fleta

As a part-time resident of Mandaluyong City, the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge is something of significant relevance to me, especially as someone who commutes through the thickness of traffic everyday.

It’s funny how our group actually obtained more data regarding the ongoing bridge re-construction from another agency instead of the actual LGU itself. Inquiries with the city office have proven so far to be just failed attempts at communication. And the bureaucracy of requesting for letters and fixed appointments to hopefully visit the site and talk to local engineers or officials have been so far brutal. So with this, we turn to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).

Based from 2019 data from the Investment Coordination Committee NEDA Board (ICC-NB) list of approved projects, we have discovered so far that as of January 2019, the construction progress is at 0.765% taking into account that groundbreaking started in July 2018.

It took almost a whopping six months to reach less than 1% progress.

Of course, we are desperately hopeful that construction pace have sped up ever since or else it will take roughly 60 years if it maintains the January 2019 construction status that NEDA gave. Sure, 60 years is an exaggeration considering there have been multiple Senate hearings that delayed construction (Senate investigations regarding the dubious bidding handed over to a Chinese firm), but even if the bridge was finished in less than a year, the fact of the matter remains - the whole construction is in controversy.

Throughout this whole endeavor, I realized that in any construction project pushed by our government, it always has three phases that should undergo scrutiny: pre, post, and during.

‘Pre’ refers to everything planning and approval-related like technical aspects, bidding awards, how it will be financed. ‘Post’ refers to everything evaluation-related like whether or not outcomes or outputs are achieved and up to standard. Meanwhile, ‘during’ in the context of construction refers to the integrity of the process as well as the speed and quality of work. All three should be closely watched under a microscope. And oftentimes, not everyone is given a chance to hold that microscope.

By: Thea Espidol

While I aspire to offer positive insight on the Mandaluyong City LGU, its usual operations, and the initiative on the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge, I find it unfortunate that the only feedback I could give on the city that I grew up and currently reside in is negative–– all of their processes take longer than necessary, they lose files (whether hard or soft copy), and they are non-consultative to their constituents. 

As the member of the group that is nearest to the assigned LGU and the consequent coordinator to the office, I have learned that their bureaucratic processes really take a while. I learned this the hard way, given that I had tried to go through the “honest” process and leave the letter as well as send an email to the Office of the Mayor and the Communications Department in spite of supposed personal connections at my disposal. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, at almost a month later since I sent soft copy of our request letter on 28 October, they asked me to resend the email again, but with the guarantee that our group would be accommodated the following week. 

In spite of the assurance that the group’s request is granted, it still is disappointing that the processing took that long to warrant either asking for help from direct contacts, or continuously following up that the group’s projected timeline gets constantly pushed back and the requirement ends up getting crammed somehow. 

As the group furthers on in the research regarding the specific governance initiative, the fact solidifies that no one was consulted regarding this project before it was approved and it just happened somehow. It also goes to show that the officials within the Mandaluyong City LGU are immensely detached from the true state of their regular constituents since until today, the bridge is not yet done and is so far back in delays and the officials are not doing anything because they have not felt the drastic and highly inconvenient effects of their supposed developmental initiatives. 

This spurs from the fact that there are new rerouting and one-way traffic schemes in some parts of Mandaluyong City that are supposed to be some of the alternate routes to get to neighboring cities until the completion of the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge. To add to this, the direct attached access city to Mandaluyong City is Pasig City and with another bridge being constructed, there are little ways of immediately getting out of Mandaluyong without going through extreme traffic congestions. 

By: Thea Espidol

As someone who lived in Mandaluyong City for all of my life, I would say that I got to be one of the lucky ones, what with living in the supposed middle of the Metro. And consequently, it is the same city wherein we were tasked to focus this semester on for our PA 162 class. 

And while I admittedly consider myself lucky, unfortunately, not everyone could say the same thing. Particularly, with the living conditions of everyone else– the hours spent on traffic, the hassle of commuting, the expensive basic commodities... the list could go on and on. 

To add to this, our chosen project for this particular class is the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge. It is the main connection of Mandaluyong City to Makati City. And recently, it had been closed down for widening and expansion, yet again. 

Making things worse, this reconstruction of the bridge had been delayed for a few months already and is no close to its completion. Additionally, the citizens of both cities have been greatly affected with the sudden change and little information dissemination.

By: Luis Emmanuel G. Fleta

The common notion and indicator for economic progress is the presence of skyscrapers and infrastructure like the ones in Makati and Bonifacio Global City (BGC). While that may be partly true, the concept of sustainable development is often lost in the discussion as long as the bosses are satisfied and the economy is buzzing.

We often forget that buildings are big emitters of greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming, leading to severe droughts and floods. And for a typhoon-prone Philippines not to mention a densely populated Metro Manila, floods and disasters become a normalized part in the lives of Filipinos living in the urban metro. But this should never be the case. Japan has numerous densely populated cities and they are disaster-prone too. But because they have state-of-the-art facilities, they are able to minimize damage while promoting sustainability structures with respect to the environment. Their floods even look clean and litter-free!

Meanwhile, Mandaluyong City’s green building ordinance have already been in place for almost six years now (passed in 2014). In fact, the city was the first LGU in the country to adopt such kind of ordinance.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, helped Mandaluyong City develop a green-building ordinance that aims to reduce energy consumption in new buildings by up to 20 percent and generate about P355 million in cost savings for businesses and households within the first three years of implementation. 

The initial construction costs for green buildings are usually bigger than conventional ones, so naturally it would hurt in the short term. However, the long term savings in operation and maintenance are said to be worth it, not to mention contributing to the longevity, energy-efficiency, safety, and is overall not harmful to the environment.

Now the big question is, why should this initiative come from the private sector only?

As we all know, the current administration has its own infrastructure agenda - Duterte’s ‘Build, Build, Build’ program. What I fear happening is no different to what has been happening in the past - favoring low construction costs but neglecting sustainability, prioritizing speed of completion over safety, and just the outright lack of research for greener alternatives.

So, what do I hope to achieve when I say Build, Sustain, Sustain?

By: Kay Zarate

Recently, my family moved to Pasig City and interestingly enough, the city also yielded a new mayor. Now, with the newly elected mayor, Mr. Vico Sotto, there have been plans to make the city better.

According to Rappler's interview with the mayor about his 100 days being mayor, is that one of his major plans is to cut down the budget for many of the city's projects by 10% and to allocate this to the scholarship fund of the city. From 11,000+ scholars before, now he raised them up to 13,000. Next year he wants it to reach 16,000. This shows Vico Sotto's priority in education for the city. He really wants to give support in our scholars so they may reach their maximum potentional. He also changed the name of the scholarship system, and in the first time since ever, it is not named after the mayor, but the city itself. Mayor Vico wanted to emphasize that this money comes from the pockets of the people, and not from him.

As a part of this city, I want the city to gain the most out of the citizen’s taxes. I expect the mayor to handle projects and do their best to work for the people’s interests. Mayor Vico Sotto’s initiative to also rid the city of corruption will be very difficult. Still he is starting from somewhere. With the budget cutting and very strong political will, he started to try and weed out money that is not needed in these projects. This initiative tries to battle corruption. As a resident in Pasig, it's important to know where the taxes my family is paying is going. I want the taxes to go to relevant projects that will help the city or country become a better place for all of us, and education for all is a dream that UP has for everyone. Vico Sotto’s scholarship program is expanding to accommodate more students. 

More than fifteen (15) years ago, way back in 2003, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) had the initiative to supposedly build three (3) to four (4) bridges by the end of the year as part of a program to provide more roads in the Metro. 

One of the bridges was the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge which runs from J.P. Rizal street near the Rockwell area in Makati City to Mandaluyong City. 

However, construction of the the bridge only finished in 2011, eight (8) years since its proposed date. The said initiative had been accomplished under the Bridge Construction and Acceleration Project for Calamity Stricken Areas I (BCAPCSA I). The project had been a collaboration between the Philippine government, through the DPWH, and Waagner-Biro Philippines Inc. (WBPI). 

They began construction on 7 July 2008 and ended on 6 July 2011, finishing the project three (3) months ahead of the projected completion date.  

The bridge was built also because of the cooperation of the mayors for Makati and Mandaluyong then, which were Jejomar Binay Jr. and Benjamin Abalos Jr. respectively.

Fast forward to June 2017, there had again been an initiative that affected the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge, this time to widen it. And according to DPWH Secretary Mark Villar, the expansion would be fully funded by the Chinese government.

The widening of the bridge should supposedly help the congestion of traffic in the area, but in attaining the goal, frequent users of the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge would first have to suffer since the bridge was closed in September 2018 in preparation for the expansion. It was then postponed and reopened to ease traffic in the area for the holiday season. 

Now, on September 2019, a year later, the bridge had been closed again for reconstruction. 

And according to MMDA data, the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge is caters to around 100,000 vehicles daily. These highly affected stakeholders are public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers, the Mandaluyong to Makati – and vice versa – commuters, and the private vehicles that frequently pass by the bridge. 

Closing the bridge affected the routes of the approximately 100, 000 PUVs and private motorists. It also caused inconveniences to the commuters, what with the route changes and varying stops. It also caused the proliferation of the volume of both public and private vehicles in some locations as well as the worsened traffic situations in the alternate routes. Although, in return, the expanded bridge will be able to accomodate more vehicles and ease the bottlenecking and congestion in the area once the project had been completed. 

While the motorists are the ones most affected, other stakeholders to the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge expansion project would be the DPWH, given that this project had been an initiative under the agency. The Chinese company that had funded the project is also a stakeholder since they are funding it and would expect a return of investment for it. 

––

In terms of the theories discussed in class, this project tackles social and political participation in the sense that the citizens should have been informed regarding the closing of the bridge since it had greatly affected the citizens of the area. The people of Mandaluyong (and Makati) should have been given the information on the scale of effect of the project, mainly the number of cars, commuters, and residents that will be affected.  The local government unit (LGU) should have also informed the citizens regarding the bidding process for the bridge for the sake of transparency.

Aside from this, the project should have gone through the participatory method via public consultations and hearings done in focused group discussions. The project had fallen under neighborhood government, with the nature of interaction as political, representative democracy, and accountable decision-making.

The barriers of the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge expansion project include insufficient financial resources of both the national and local government if we had to source the funding from international companies; the low level of participation since the citizens were not informed of the bidding process as well as an advanced notice that the bridge would be closed for reconstruction. 

The project’s key actors include the commuters, both public and private vehicles that utilize the bridge in traveling from Makati to Mandaluyong (and vice versa) on a daily basis, the Philippine government (via DPWH), and the Chinese company that funded its reconstruction. 

Lastly, and quite obviously, the consequences of this project is the traffic situation for the duration of the project as well as the paying back the Chinese for their investment. 

Sources:

[1] More bridges across Pasig

https://www.philstar.com/metro/2003/04/20/203057/more-bridges-across-pasig

[2] Construction of 19 Austrian-funded bridges revealed

https://www.philstar.com/business/real-estate/2011/07/08/703422/construction-19-austrian-funded-bridges-revealed

[3] Construction of two China-sponsored bridges to begin this year

https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/06/29/17/construction-of-two-china-sponsored-bridges-to-begin-this-year

[4] Estrella-Pantaleon bridge reopens to motorists

By: Luis Emmanuel G. Fleta

We are a nation so in love and so obsessed with basketball, yet basketball just doesn’t seem to love us back – and with our Men’s Senior National Team, basketball is becoming harder and harder to love.

Citizenship has sometimes become synonymous, if not, closely linked to the concept of Patriotism and Nationalism. “Identifying oneself as part of a nation and showing support for the nation’s interest” - indeed, what better example for this than by showing love to our very own Gilas Pilipinas.

With the FIBA World Cup still ongoing as of this writing, it is disheartening to say the least watching our Men’s side as they have suffered a cumulative 108 point differential against Serbia, Italy and Angola. We never really expected to dominate and win a lot of games in this tournament, but being beaten black and blue just wasn’t in the agenda.

Although we were never really expected to win, we were expected to fight, to show grit and grind in these games, to exemplify our famous battle cry – “Puso.” Yet the opposite happened.

I would no longer go into the details of why our basketball program failed to show fruit in the highest stage of competition. Let’s just say it was a combination of failures – lack of preparation and training, injuries, an isolation style of basketball, and most notably socio-political conflict of interest among the officials from the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA). And as our losses kept piling up, our known avid supporters in social media have turned into our team’s very own hecklers and haters to say the least.  

With this, I have noticed relatable parallels with the current socio-political situation of our country with our status in international basketball.

What bothers me is that despite this government’s “war against drugs” which is killing thousands of wrongly accused and innocent collaterals, Duterte’s trust and approval ratings remain high.

What bothers me is that amidst obvious exploitation of the Chinese government on our territorial waters, our government remains oblivious and silent on the issue.

What bothers me is that while our small-time farmers are being killed in Negros, multi-national companies and plantations are being protected and assured of land ownership.