SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS OF THE ) 
REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES 
)
First Regular Session 
)
of llti.ji''"n 11( y
*16 AUG-8 PA :32
SENATE
s. B. No. 
9 9 n
U4—
-Lx3t’:
INTRODUCED BY SENATOR ALAN PETER "COMPANERO" S. CAYETANO
AN ACT
GRANTING THE PRESIDENT/EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT EMERGENCY 
POWERS TO MANAGE, MITIGATE AND SOLVE THE TRAFFIC AND CONGESTION CRISIS 
ACROSS THE PHILIPPINES. TO EXPEDITIOUSLY AND EFFECTIVELY IMPLEMENT 
MEASURES THAT SHALL PROVIDE REAL LASTING SOLUTIONS AS WELL AS THE 
EARLIEST RESPITE FROM TRAFFIC AND CONGESTION, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
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People living in the Greater Metro Manila area (including the provinces of Rizal, 
Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Batangas), Metro Cebu and other growing highly urbanized 
cities across the Philippines face increasing and more pronounced traffic, congestion, and 
pollution. This situation leads to more problems such as air pollution, unsafe roads, health 
risks and, as a result, a deteriorating quality of life.
Increased traffic, congestion and pollution have also affected trade and commerce, 
thereby causing delay in the delivery of goods along the road network, additional 
delivery/distribution time and more transportation and warehousing costs, which all lead 
to added costs and higher prices of goods and services, thus making life harder for a 
majority of our people who barely make enough to supply the basic needs of their family.
Furthermore, even precious quality time with one’s family is being sacrificed and 
wasted on the road and in our ports. A barista living in Cavite would spend two to three 
hours commuting to his or her workplace in Metro Manila, and another two to three hours 
going home - a total of six (6) hours in transit which could have been better spent being 
productive or being with one’s family and loved ones. The typical Filipino dream of eating 
dinner together as a family and building memories with each other every day, has been 
rendered almost illusory. Hours spent lining up at the MRT or LRT stations, hoping the 
trains won’t breakdown midway, or stuck in traffic at the airport for hours is now the new 
normal. With a little bit of rain comes flooding and an insurmountable time spent on the 
road due to gridlock. One stalled car in the highway during rush hour would already add 
around a thirty-minute delay to normal land travel time, if not cause a standstill altogether, 
due to the insufficiency of roads. Such hours spent in traffic and congestion also expose the 
commuter to safety risks and transportation hazards, while his or her family suffers their 
absence and continues to worry about their safe return home.
Take the case of Metro Cebu. The province’s natural beauty and attraction of being 
merely thirty (30) minutes to an hour away from the cities, the mountains, or the beach 
areas, have now become just a myth. Traffic plagues the whole Metro Cebu with no relief in 
sight. Worse, our Cebuano kababayans have to wait for Manila to act and solve their 
problem. This is the fate that awaits other highly urbanized cities in the years to come if 
nothing will be done to change the way things currently stand. Slow, inefficient, Metro 
Manila-centric, highly centralized and at times corrupt: this is what we as a people have 
come to expect from our existing system.
As early as 2005, the World Bank1 noted in its review of the Philippine 
infrastructure sector that high levels of congestion, poor conditions of parts of the road 
network, inadequate connectivity for inter-city or inter-regional movement and the lack of
1 Philippines: Meeting Infrastructure Challenges, World Bank, 2005.