This paper aims to provide a situationer on transport governance in the Philippines, as they apply to Metro Manila. Metro Manila provides the arena for describing and analyzing the complexity and dynamics of transport governance in the country. This is occasioned by the number of local government units located in the metropolis (17 cities and municipality) as well as various national government agencies with transport-related mandates operating in the region. Metro Manila is also one of the biggest (13 million) and fastest growing metropolises in the world. The case of Metro Manila’s suboptimal transport governance regime is a product of political, economic, and cultural forces over decades of dealing wit h problems of a developing country. Foremost among these is the tension between a decentralization policy enshrined in the 1987 Constitution that serves development in a country of 7,100 islands but is at cross-purposes with the requirements of an integrated metropolitanization regime for Metro Manila. This paper deals with national to local transport-related policy and their application to Metro Manila. An effort is made to describe the operation of these policies on the ground, and how conflicts are generated and attempted to be resolved. The paper also gives a glimpse of how Philippine democracy operates in the policy arena, and how increasingly civil society and private sector engagement and consultation are creating an increasingly positive environment for policy reform in transport.
Download Free PDF View PDF
