Authorities reclassify the daily gridlock as terrain rather than a transport problem
Reporting brought to you by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
Officials Confirm Congestion Has Achieved The Stability And Permanence Of A Mountain Range
MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Citing its remarkable consistency, predictability, and refusal to ever improve, transport authorities have officially reclassified Metro Manila traffic as a permanent geographic feature, removing it from the category of solvable transport problems and placing it alongside rivers, mountains, and other fixed elements of the natural landscape.
“We have studied the traffic for decades,” announced Undersecretary Ramon Esguerra of the newly formed Bureau of Geographic Congestion. “And we have concluded that it is not, in fact, a problem to be solved. It is terrain. Like a mountain range, it has been here for generations, it does not move, and it shapes the lives of everyone around it. You do not solve a mountain. You build around it, you account for it, you accept it. The traffic is the same. It is a permanent feature of the landscape, and we will now treat it accordingly, on maps and in planning.”
The Reclassification
According to the Institute for Urban Permanence, the reclassification reflects a mature acceptance of reality. “For years, the government promised to solve the traffic,” explained Dr. Liwayway Bautista, the institute’s director. “New roads, new trains, new schemes. And the traffic remained, unchanged, eternal. At some point, honesty requires us to admit that the traffic is not a temporary condition awaiting a solution. It is a permanent feature, as fixed as the bay or the hills. Reclassifying it as geography is simply acknowledging the truth. We have stopped pretending we will solve it. We have started treating it as the terrain it has become.”
The new classification will have practical effects, officials confirmed. “Maps will now show the major traffic zones as topographical features,” said Esguerra. “EDSA will be marked the way a mountain pass is marked, with elevation and difficulty ratings. Schoolchildren will study the traffic in geography class, alongside rivers and landforms. And crucially, no future administration will be permitted to promise to solve it, because you cannot promise to remove a mountain. The traffic is terrain now. Permanent. Official. On the map. We have made peace with it by declaring it part of the earth.”
The Citizens Adapt
Commuters expressed a weary acceptance of the reclassification. “It makes sense,” said office worker Maricel Tan, 34, during her three-hour commute across a distance of eleven kilometers. “They were never going to fix it. So calling it geography is just being honest. The traffic has been here my whole life. My parents commuted through it. My children will commute through it. It is not a problem. It is the landscape. We are a people who live among mountains, and rivers, and an enormous permanent traffic jam that the government has finally admitted is part of the land itself.”
Some commuters found a strange comfort in the new framing. “When you think of it as a problem, you get angry,” said jeepney passenger Boyet Mercado, 41. “You wait for it to be solved, and it never is, and you suffer. But when you think of it as terrain, as a mountain you must cross every day, it is easier. You do not get angry at a mountain. You just account for it. Leave early. Bring food. Accept the crossing. The reclassification has freed us from hope, and there is peace in that. We no longer wait for the traffic to end. We simply live among it, as people have always lived among the features of their land.”
The Tourism Potential
The Department of Tourism has reportedly begun exploring ways to market the newly classified geographic feature. “Other countries have natural wonders,” noted department consultant Imelda Faraon. “Mountains, waterfalls, canyons. We have one of the largest, most consistent traffic features in the world. Why not embrace it? Tourists could experience the legendary EDSA crossing, a journey of patience and endurance unlike any other. We are exploring guided traffic tours, in which visitors experience the full majesty of Metro Manila congestion, marvel at its scale, and emerge transformed. If it is terrain, it is terrain we can sell.”
Experts noted that the tourism angle, while ambitious, accurately reflected the traffic’s scale. “It genuinely is one of the most impressive congestion features on earth,” said Dr. Bautista. “Vast, consistent, awe-inspiring in its way. If we are going to live with it permanently, we may as well take pride in it. Other cities have traffic. We have a geographic feature. There is a grandeur to that, a scale that commands respect. The Bureau of Geographic Congestion intends to honor that grandeur, mapping it, studying it, and perhaps, in time, helping the world appreciate the magnificent permanence of the great Metro Manila traffic, a wonder of the modern landscape.”
The Permanent Feature
The reclassification takes effect immediately, with the traffic now officially recognized as a fixed element of the Philippine landscape, no longer subject to the indignity of promised solutions. “It is part of the land now,” said Esguerra, gazing at a horizon of stationary vehicles. “Permanent, like the mountains, like the sea. We have stopped fighting it. We have accepted it. And in accepting it, we have found a kind of peace. The traffic will be here long after we are gone, a feature of the earth, shaping the lives of generations to come. We honor it by acknowledging what it has always been: not a problem, but terrain. Eternal. Unmovable. Ours.” The traffic, indifferent to its new classification, continued not to move, as it had every day for decades, a permanent feature of a landscape that had finally, officially, given up on it ever being anything else. For genuine background, see the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, and for further detail, the Department of Transportation covers the real subject.
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