Entrepreneurs are happy that, finally, customers are back. Perhaps this year’s Christmas signifies the normalcy that we need. Baguio City is a recipient of many visitors, with traffic resulting in gridlock. Even malls are teeming with people, especially families, unmindful of traffic on the streets. Emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, this year’s Christmas season may be one of the most celebrated, considering the penchant of Filipino families to spend the holidays outside Metro Manila and in other places. Christmas is the biggest and longest holiday in the Philippines. We are passionate about celebrating Christmas because perhaps 90 percent of our population is Catholic. 18, causing flooding and rain in various areas in Mindanao.īut traffic should not dampen our resolve to celebrate Christmas. Just recently, Tropical Storm Kabayan hit the Philippines on Dec. Rains and typhoons often occur in December. The inclement weather during holiday seasons also contributes to traffic. There are roads undergoing construction that have been left unattended, with the contractor seemingly abandoning the project. What complicates the traffic situation is the non-stop construction and maintenance of roads, leading to bottlenecks and traffic jams, especially during peak hours. Hordes of people line up the streets and struggle to ride the diminishing number of public utility vehicles. The inadequacy of our public transportation to accommodate the increasing population in Metro Manila and to respond to the spike in people’s activities during the holidays remains a principal reason. With people and employees getting their 13th month pay and bonuses, mall sales are opportunities to buy goods at lower prices. Mall sales and promotions during the Christmas season contribute to traffic congestion. It has become customary for just anybody to close roads, even without the approval of the village chiefs. Tertiary roads are also arbitrarily closed due to programs, mass, and community Christmas parties. The arbitrary closure of roads affects traffic on secondary roads, resulting in gridlock. Why the adjustment in mall hours? Well, according to the MMDA, there is a need to spread mall hours in the evening to spread out the presence of cars plying the roads.Īnother reason is road closures due to events such as parades and festivals. 20, the MMDA announced that starting Nov. This leads to a higher volume of vehicles on the road, especially near malls and shopping centers. Perhaps one of the reasons for the holiday traffic is the consumerism of people who engage in gift-buying. That was in 2016, and after seven years, hundreds of thousands of vehicles have been added to the already congested roads in Metro Manila. Some 80 percent to 90 percent of air pollution is caused by vehicles, mostly jeepneys, buses, and commercial vehicles that use diesel. Emmanuel de Guzman, said that according to a global GPS-based survey, Metro Manila has the worst traffic on Earth. In 2016, the vice chairman of the Climate Change Commission (CCC), Sec. How much more during the Christmas season when we experience carmaggedon? He admits that this is even a conservative estimate.

No less than National Economic and Development Authority chief Arsenio Balisacan acknowledged that time lost by people in Metro Manila traffic and the cost of operating vehicles in gridlock amount to PHP3 billion a day. Many studies have already been conducted to prove the monetary effects of traffic. I have been stuck in traffic countless times, so I know how it feels to be sitting inside your car and watching as time passes by and, indubitably, burning needless fuel. Traffic during the Christmas season has become a natural thing. Not even the clearing of Mabuhay lanes can ease the traffic situation in Metro Manila.Ĭhristmas has become synonymous with traffic, even in major cities such as Baguio and Cebu. Indeed, the monstrous traffic jams at SLEX, NLEX, EDSA, C5, and on arterial roads are miseries to everyone. 7 that the public should expect the start of heavy traffic, leading to the Christmas season. The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) announced as early as Dec. Filipinos call it “carmaggeddon” to illustrate the severity of traffic. Why is it that we always experience nightmarish traffic in Metro Manila during the Christmas holidays? We call it the Christmas rush when traffic is not moving at all.

Holiday gridlock traffic