Sunday 31st July, 2011
ENVIRONMENT Secretary Ramon Paje said retiring old cars would achieve a "quantum leap" for decongesting cities in the country that are facing heavy traffic and pollution, especially Metro Manila.
As proposed by Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Senate Bill 2834 would in effect remove anywhere from 1.1 million to 2.2 million vehicles from the road in just one year. Once undertaken, some 6.6 million metric tons to 7.6 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced annually under a five-year national voucher program.
Data from the Land Transportation Office (LTO) show that registered vehicles grew by an average of 6.6 percent annually between 2008 and 2010.
Last year, 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 since unregistered vehicles still ply the road owing to lack of resources to pay for the registration fee and the certainty of failing the smoke emission test, a requirement before securing a vehicle registration from the Land Transportation Office.
The environment chief noted that the bill, 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.
This will result in the creation of "walkable" cities and the establishment of more bike lanes, he said.
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.
He also urged local government units to strictly prohibit the use of roads as parking lots.
Citing the merits of the bill, Paje said its passage is also seen to result in lower spending for treating air pollution-related ailments, which stands at P7.6 billion annually, according to a World Bank study.