Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Ramon J. P. Paje today said retiring old cars as proposed by Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago in Senate Bill (SB) 2834 would achieve a “quantum leap” for decongesting many cities in the country, particularly Metro Manila, that are facing heavy traffic and pollution.
“The proposed legislation of Sen. Santiago represents a quantum leap to securing the country’s gains on improving its air quality especially in big cities like Metro Manila where the accessibility and convenience of pedestrians is already impeded by over accumulation of vehicles beyond the capacity of our roads,” said Paje.
Paje said the passage of the bill may signal a “golden opportunity to banish fuel-inefficient cars clogging our city streets”
In the explanatory note for SB 2834, Senator Santiago said the bill would in effect remove anywhere from 1.1 million to 2.2 million vehicles from the road in just one year, which is the equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions between 6.6 million metric tons to 7.6 million metric tons that will be reduced annually under a five-year national voucher program “to encourage owners to trade in older, less fuel efficient cars, trucks or sports utility vehicles for more fuel-efficient vehicles or to use mass transit.”
Data from the Land Transportation Office (LTO) show that registered vehicles grew by an average of 6.6 percent annually between 2008 and 2010.
In 2010, there were 6,634,855 registered vehicles, an increase of 6.6 percent from 6,220,433 in 2009. In 2008, there were 5.9 million registered motor vehicles nationwide.
But, according to Paje, the actual number of vehicles may be higher with unregistered vehicles still plying the road for lack of resources for the registration fee and certainty of failing the smoke emission test, a requirement before securing a vehicle registration from the Land Transportation Office.
The environment chief noted that SB 2834, if passed and implemented, would likewise have “a deep ripple effect” among Filipino car owners to develop a culture of sensitivity to greening the road lanes.
The bill augurs well for the push by civil society and local governments to reclaim city streets for pedestrians and install efficient transport systems that allows lower-carbon footprints like the creation of “walkable” cities and the establishment of bike lanes, according to Paje.
He also said that vehicle emission is at its worst during traffic. “For example, if a car emits one kilogram of gas emission in a 15-minute traffic congestion, you can just imagine the four kilos of gas emission coming each car in an hour of traffic.” Paje explained, citing that a trip to Cubao from the Quezon Memorial Circle takes an hour due to traffic, when it should not take more than 15 minutes on traffic-less days.
Paje explained that most of the country’s local roads were designed before the boom in the local car industry, and many were built long before cars became a fixture in most Filipino households. Relative to this, Paje urged local government units to strictly prohibit the use of roads as parking lots.
Citing the merits of SB 2384, Paje said its passage is also seen to result in tremendous improvements in the “country’s health care system since health cost and loss of revenues due to air pollution – affecting some 18 million Filipinos – runs up to P7.6 billion annually,” according to a World Bank study. Ayda Zoleta, PAO,-DENR
