I\nbike-commute to work, and it is my advocacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\nlove the adrenaline rush from packing my stuff every morning, putting them on\nmy pannier, changing into cycling attire, and pedaling on to work. Not a few\ntimes, I forget to bring pocket money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My\ncity is hilly, and my rides give me that much-needed oomph for my sedentary\nexistence. I love the clicking sound of a well-tuned gear shift as I go uphill\nand my soft gasps (or grunts) as the only gauge I need for my simple machine. I\nrelish the downhills and tailwinds, the draft on my face as I pass between\nhouses and tall trees, and the unexpected drizzle on an evening ride. I always\nlook forward to the exhilarating feeling of freedom a bike ride brings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Okay,\nI may be romanticizing this a bit. I bike-commute in Metro Manila \u2013 a city\namong the world\u2019s top 10 in air pollution, Asia’s most crowded city, and the\nworst traffic on earth. A Dutch friend once told me when he learned that I bike\nin the metro that I am being suicidal. Amsterdam where he lives is the second\nmost bike-friendly city on the planet, next to Copenhagen. The Netherlands has\nan enviable bicycle culture that makes you think their kids learned to cycle\nfirst before they could even walk. This can only emanate from a progressive\neconomy and organized society, however. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in Metro Manila, you have to be a warrior to assert more sustainable options for mobility, including simply being a pedestrian. You have to fight for a lane, a space, a green light, a minute. And as a female cyclist, you also have to fight for a little respect. On the road, we are the lowest form of life, along with the mass of public transport commuters who struggle everyday to get to their destinations. It’s a lonely road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Twisted\nplans<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nPhilippines is private car-centric. The Duterte administration\u2019s vision paper, AmBisyon Natin 2040, <\/em>imagines a future\nwhere each family owns a private car. We will be \u201cpredominantly middle-class\u201d\nby then, government envisions, which is sadly a twisted view of development,\nnot to mention that government lacks imagination for a sustainable public mass\ntransport system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Private\ncars and those needlessly huge sports utility vehicles dominate the main\nthoroughfares. In 2019, for instance, they comprised 63% of the daily volume of\nEDSA. This is while the public is having the worst transport crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Government\u2019s\ninfrastructure ambition, Build, Build,\nBuild<\/em>, is dominantly transport-focused but unfortunately caters to the\ntrading and service-oriented economy that is concentrated in Metro Manila. This\nis while the country\u2019s agricultural and industrial base is shrinking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Metro\nManila is a chaos of shopping malls, hypermarkets, condominiums, and office\nspaces for call centers and online gambling. It is bursting with real estate\ndevelopment, which is hollow if we come to think how the country cannot even\nproduce its own steel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Automotive\ncorporations, commercial banks, oil companies, and even the government are the\nones that profit from promoting private motor vehicle use. Car dealers sell\nimported completely knocked-down vehicles, while banks offer auto loans at\nfavorable interest rates. Petroleum products are overpriced, while government\ncollects taxes on the pump sales. Government also earns from vehicle\nregistration and licensing fees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile,\nreal estate and construction oligarchs, retail giants, importers and exporters,\nand foreign investors have immensely increased their wealth from infrastructure\nprojects that benefit their own businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nbottom line is that the push for such infrastructure and real estate\ndevelopment only perpetuates private car-centricity. A sustainable mass\ntransport system, much less a bicycle culture, can never emanate from this kind\nof development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bikers,\nunite!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Then\nCOVID-19 happened. Suddenly, the government is encouraging biking as a mode of\ntransport around the metro to observe physical distancing. Suddenly, the\ngovernment is recognizing the economic, environmental and health benefits of\nriding a bicycle, and as a solution to traffic congestion. It is strange that\nit has taken a health crisis for the government to recognize the viability and\nsustainability of biking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So\nhere we are \u2013 we are giving the bicycle another chance. Some people are\nrestoring their old bicycles, while others are starting to save up for new\nbuys. There are also adults who have determinedly taken up riding lessons from\nfriends. More and more cyclists are filling the streets to go to the market, to\nwork, or to visit their families. Here we are \u2013 we are reclaiming that sense of\nfreedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet,\nas with its COVID response, the government is not prepared and seems unwilling\nto respond. The transportation department has only delegated the task of\nsorting out this \u201cnew normal\u201d to the local government units thus making efforts\nfragmented, and worse, tokenistic. The different transport and traffic agencies\nalso lack cohesion on what new rules, or even what new attitude, to adopt to\nreally encourage biking as a transport mode and to start a process of\nre-education of motorists and even pedestrians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\ngovernment is not prepared to accompany its promotion of the use of bicycles with\nsteps that would truly encourage biking in a car-centric metropolis. The\ngovernment has yet to reorient its infrastructure plan for the government\nitself to internalize the principle of road-sharing with cyclists and to\npromote bikers\u2019 welfare. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For\na start, the government can designate continuous and integrated bike lanes for\na safe and efficient bike commute. It can require all establishments to provide\nbike parking or may assign public spaces for such. The government can also\ndesign foot bridges or overpasses with bike ramps for safer traverses in busy\navenues. These efforts would eventually give rise to more advanced measures\nsuch as designation of exclusive bike roads, exclusive bike traffic rules and\nsigns, putting bike racks in train coaches, providing public bike-sharing as\nlast-mile augmentation, and the like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately,\nwe should aspire for an ambitious sustainable development plan which will take\ninto account environmental integrity, strengthening the capacity of the public\nhealth system, and building the country\u2019s agricultural and industrial capacity\nbase. We can be a nation that manufactures its own bicycles. It will be such a\nrevolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For\na fast shift, government can start by listening to the stakeholders \u2013 the\nbikers. But several bike advocates\u2019 groups have come forward to suggest and\ncooperate to make this work, only to be ignored or, worse, even fined for\ninterfering. The government seems to be against any type of activism at this\npoint. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This\nis why I tell my foreign friends that you cannot simply be a cyclist in the\nPhilippines without being an activist \u2013 we have to fight for recognition every\nsingle day. And now that our number is increasing, I can only parody the\nrevolutionary Karl Marx: \u201cBikers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose\nbut your chains!\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BIRD FEED<\/p>\n In Metro Manila, you have to be a warrior to assert more sustainable options for mobility, including simply being a pedestrian. You have to fight for a lane, a space, a green light, a minute. And as a female cyclist, you also have to fight for a little respect. On the road, we are the lowest form of life, along with the mass of public transport commuters who struggle everyday to get to their destinations. It’s a lonely road.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":9898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-withbanner.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[2048,2049],"tags":[2302,2301,2199,347,2303,2034,2098,2060],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9896"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9896"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9901,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9896\/revisions\/9901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}