(Eagle News) — Senator Grace Poe on Friday revived her call for Congress to pass a bill that would grant President Rodrigo Duterte emergency powers to address vehicular congestion in Metro Manila.
Poe did this after the Japan International Cooperation Agency said around P3.5 billion per day were lost due to traffic in the country, a figure that was higher than the P2.4 billion JICA estimated was lost per day in 2012.
According to Poe, the passage of the emergency powers bill that was pending in the Senate would ensure the implementation of a “well-thought out plan” that will in turn enable the development of a “reliable and convenient mass transit system,” the construction of “alternative roads and bridges,” the pursuit of “innovative technological traffic management solutions,” and the development of “economic centers outside of Metro Manila.”
She said these were needed to “address this worsening traffic crisis.”
“There is a need to grant extraordinary powers, because current laws do not adequately provide for the means to expeditiously and effectively solve this traffic and congestion crisis. Some laws even create roadblocks to acting promptly,” Poe, who is also the chair of the Senate committee on public services, said.
She said “what (was) perhaps needed” to expedite the bill “through the last mile of approval is presidential certification of urgency.”
“Because we all know that it is the lubricant which moves legislation. We are in a war against traffic, but if the people who will receive such emergency powers will categorically say that the powers are an ammunition they no longer need, then the onus of solving it falls solely and squarely on them,” she said.
