Joseph Emilio Pabaya Is Proven Wrong For The Nth Time As Patients Die In Manila Traffic Jam

It's really stupid to blame President Duterte for the traffic (or any president for that matter). If anyone can be blamed for the intense traffic in Metro Manila -- you can blame it on former DOTC Secretary Joseph Emilio Pabaya who said that traffic is not fatal. Also, you have Agot Isidro who is delusional to think that she only felt the traffic during President Duterte's term. Recently, a new article that surfaced from ABiaS-CBN has revealed the fatal outcome of intense traffic in Manila. That heavy traffic was not only a problem during President Duterte's term, not only during Noynoy's term but also a very common problem that tends to get NEGLECTED over and over again. Not to mention, it's the SYSTEM once more that's the problem! Why can't people get it that it's the SYSTEM that's the bigger problem than the people managing the system?

Here's what the same article from ABiaS-CBN reveals and it's going to pinpoint a LOT OF PROBLEMS that can't be blamed on President Duterte alone:

MANILA - Gridlock in Manila is costing lives as ambulances stuck in traffic face severe delays in the race against the clock to reach the city's hospitals, medics warn.

Special lanes for emergency vehicles are not enforced, the infrastructure is outdated, and local drivers are often unwilling or unable to make way -- a situation experts say is causing patients to die en route.

"You feel empty. It is as if you were not given a chance to do everything in your capacity to help," ambulance driver and paramedic Joseph Laylo told AFP.

"If the traffic was not that bad it could have saved the patient," he added, recalling how he lost a patient when congestion tripled the time to hospital.

Even with an encyclopedic knowledge of short cuts or aggressive driving such as blasting their horns or bumping unyielding vehicles, it is not always enough to arrive in time. 

Driver Adriel Aragon is still haunted after losing a critically ill patient when it took 40 minutes to reach the hospital -- the journey should have taken half that time.

"No matter how hard we honk, even if we use our siren, if the vehicles are not moving it doesn't matter," he said.

"That's what happened that time," Aragon added of the 2014 tragedy. 

Five minutes before they reached the hospital the woman's pulse disappeared. She was pronounced dead after they wheeled her into the emergency room.

At peak hours, the main arteries of Manila are clogged with idling cars -- a 25-kilometer (16-mile) end to end drive through the main highway can take as long as three hours. 

Home to some 13 million, there is nearly one vehicle registered per person. The resulting gridlock costs the city $67 million daily in lost productivity, according to a 2017 Japanese government-funded study.

Don't tell me that President Duterte was president last 2014! The incident that Aragon mentions happened at that time. You can think of the problem also of OUTDATED infrastructure yet these Liberal retards are against Build Build Build (which should be carefully implemented) -- yet they have NO PROBLEM giving that budget or even borrowing tons of money for a Juan Tamad program believing it will give the country a three times return. Where did they get that data? From Leni Loud Robredo's 40 x 4? Outdated infrastructures are needed to be repaired and UPGRADED as part of fixing the traffic problem. Need I mention people are also recklessly buying cars even when they don't have a garage? Singapore limits the buying of cars hence the country has much less traffic even if it's way smaller than the Philippines. 

It's a burden for hospital workers to see their patients die in the traffic jam. They are alert and they are ON TIME to respond to rescue. However, it's the circumstances that have led to the demise of patients DURING TRAFFIC. While traffic itself isn't always a valid reason to be late but in the Philippines -- well it's becoming more or less a valid reason, right? I wonder does Pabaya even consider that time is of the essence? Maybe that guy's attendance sheet needs to be checked to see if he's always habitually tardy as the DOTC Secretary. 

The other problem again is the unitary system of governance. It's because all activities are too focused on Imperial Manila. Shouldn't development be spread evenly in the Philippines? Only an asymmetrical federalist type of government is able to do that with a give and take relationship. Once again, federalism is not a country with many constitutions under one constitution. That 4Ps-obsessed old man lives in Australia yet he can't even understand how federalism and unitary (and not to mention parliamentary and presidential) greatly differ. It's not enough to live under both -- you need to examine them. Sadly, that old man is probably having too much of a good time reaping the benefits of Australia's SYSTEM (federal-parliamentary) while he loves the faulty system of the Philippines. Then he expects President Duterte to magically solve the traffic problem while he conveniently ignores Pabaya's real-life stupidity.

If anything, I think a Senate inquiry should be calling for Pabaya to answer for his claim and lousy performance as DOTC Secretary. Would have the Philippines been under a parliamentary -- Pabaya himself would have been ousted as Transporation Minister. He would be subjected to frequent questioning about the traffic in the Philippines and what he plans to do with it. Sadly, the Philippines' adherence to presidential democrazy has only made things worse. Don't let Pabaya get away with his performance too!