Metro Manila has never had a master plan—not 30 years ago, not 50 years ago, and not today—and that absence of vision is at the root of every crisis the capital region now faces, from chronic flooding to gridlock to a garbage problem with no solution in sight, Caloocan City 2nd District Representative Edgar “Egay” Erice said Tuesday.
Erice made the statement in an interview on DZRH News program The Situation Report on September 8, in a candid assessment of what has gone wrong with Metro Manila over the past half century.
The lawmaker said other Asian capitals that are now models of urban management—Seoul, Tokyo, Bangkok—planned for their population growth before it happened, and then implemented urban renewal programs when their populations eventually outgrew their original infrastructure.
“Unang-una, lumaki na, naging populated na walang pagpaplano. Lumaki, naging kalunsuran na walang plano na maging lungsod. Ganun ang nangyari,” Erice said.
Erice said Cambodia, despite still being a developing country, is already ahead of the Philippines in this regard — with planners deliberately setting buildings back from waterways and highways in their urban design, lessons the Philippines has never applied to Metro Manila.
When veteran broadcast journalist Cesar Chavez asked whether any vision for Metro Manila, even a flood control master plan, had ever been formally presented to Congress, Erice gave only this answer: “Wala eh.”
Erice said the absence of a master plan is compounded by the fragmented governance structure of 17 autonomous local government units, each with its own political interests, making integrated planning practically impossible without a higher authority to impose a unified vision.
The lawmaker said the time for diagnosis is over: Metro Manila’s problems are well understood, well documented, and growing more severe every year, and that what is now needed is the political will to act on what everyone already knows must be done.
