A viral video and a 90-day license suspension leave Metro Manila wondering who enforces the enforcers
EDSA Bus Lane Counterflow by Traffic Aide Described as Unscheduled Training Exercise
MANDALUYONG – Metro Manila motorists, who have been ticketed for entering the EDSA Bus Lane by accident, by confusion and on one occasion by a pothole, watched with interest this year as a traffic aide was filmed driving the wrong way down it and blocking an oncoming bus. As the Daily Tribune reported on the LTO and MMDA crackdown on the traffic aide, the Land Transportation Office suspended the aide’s driver’s license for 90 days pending the outcome of its probe, and both agencies opened separate investigations after the video spread online.
At the Ortigas flyover, where the bus lane is watched by enforcers, cameras and at least four men selling bottled water, the public response was swift. “For years they tell us, do not enter the bus lane, the bus lane is sacred,” said Rodel Macaraeg, a delivery rider waiting at the Shaw Boulevard intersection. “Now I learn you can enter it, backwards, if you are wearing the uniform. I have ordered a uniform.” Macaraeg said the uniform is arriving Thursday, cash on delivery.
The Defense Takes Shape
Supporters of the aide, who number fewer than he might have hoped, have advanced several explanations. The Guadalupe Institute for Roadside Reasoning, a think tank operating from a carinderia near the MRT station, compiled the leading theories:
- He was showing the public an example of a violation, at scale
- He was testing the bus driver’s reflexes, which were found satisfactory
- From his point of view, the bus was counterflowing
- He was late, which in Manila is a recognized emergency
- The lane was empty and “sayang,” a waste to leave it unused
Institute director Lourdes Buenaventura said the last theory has the most public sympathy. “Every Filipino driver has looked at that empty lane beside three hours of standstill and felt something,” she said. “It is like seeing an unattended lechon. You know it is not yours. And yet.”
Two Agencies, Two Investigations, One Video
The incident has produced the rare spectacle of two government bodies investigating the same forty seconds of footage independently. Observers expect the findings to be thorough. One inquiry will determine whether the vehicle was traveling against traffic. The other will determine whether it was traveling against traffic. Both are said to be reviewing the video, in which the vehicle travels against traffic.
A survey of 500 EDSA commuters by the Institute found that 91 percent had seen the clip, 84 percent had sent it to a family group chat with the caption “tingnan mo ito,” and 76 percent said the 90-day suspension was the first time they had seen a penalty arrive faster than a bus.
A Lane With a History
The bus lane has become one of the most heavily policed strips of concrete in the country. Senators, police convoys, ambulances with no patients and vloggers have all been stopped in it, each one explaining that their case was different. Motoring writers who follow the agencies, such as those behind Top Gear Philippines’ running file on government transport news, have chronicled years of new schemes, adjusted schedules and periodic calls to restructure the whole enforcement system. The lane survives them all, mostly empty, glowing faintly with temptation.
Bus drivers, for their part, say they are used to surprises. “I have met a wedding car in that lane,” said a driver on the Carousel route who has worked EDSA for nineteen years. “I have met a man pushing a cart of mangoes. I have met a senator’s backup vehicle and then the senator’s backup vehicle’s backup vehicle. An enforcer coming at me is at least a professional. He signaled.”
Proposed Reforms
Officials are weighing measures to prevent a repeat. One proposal would require enforcers to pass the same seminar they assign to violators, a three-hour lecture that many drivers describe as the true punishment. Another would install signs reading “This Means You Also.” A third, favored by commuters, would simply open the lane to anyone willing to drive in the correct direction, a standard the Institute estimates 60 percent of the city could meet on a good day.
The Water Vendors’ Verdict
The men who sell bottled water between lanes at Ortigas have seen everything the highway can offer and consider themselves the lane’s true custodians. One vendor, who has worked the same fifty meters since 2008, said he watched the vehicle pass. “I thought, this is brave,” he said. “Then I saw the bus. Then I thought, this is a different word.” He sold three bottles to passengers on the stopped bus while the two drivers discussed it.
Londoners Know the Feeling
The episode has been followed in the United Kingdom, where the bus lane is likewise a zone of fines, cameras and moral drama. The London Prat’s British satirical news on transport chaos recalled a council van photographed parked in the very bay it was sent to ticket. Its London satirical news about buses concluded that every city’s traffic authority eventually becomes its own most interesting case.
The aide is understood to be commuting by public transport while his license is suspended. He takes the Carousel. Witnesses say he boards at Guadalupe, stands near the front and watches the lane ahead very carefully. Bohiney Magazine can report the bus was on time, traveling north, in the northbound direction.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/