Tricycle Protest Gridlocks Manila

by Ma Nguyen Tong

10-1-2003

Thousands of motorcycle taxis clogged up the centre of the Philippines capital, Manila, in protest at a new law designed to reduce pollution. Traffic was slowed to a crawl as angry taxi drivers drove their three-wheeled vehicles through the city centre before converging outside the presidential palace. The new legislation, which came into effect on January 1, 2003 would require drivers to convert to engines with cleaner emmissions. However, the government said it would set up a committee to discuss the issue and allow the taxi drivers more time to comply.

"I believe the government will fulfill its end of the bargain," said Ariel Lim, president of the National Confederation of Tricycle Operators and Drivers Associations.

"If it fails, we may hold another protest and it cannot blame us," he said.

Ill-health

Under the Clean Air Act, the taxis would have to undergo emission tests aimed at replacing two-stroke engines with more environmentally-friendly four-stroke versions. All these taxis produce thick blue smoke which adds to the already highly noxious pollution in all of the Philippines' cities, towns and even rural communities. This tricycles make up to 98 percent of the vehicles in thickly clogged street of many small towns. One would thing such towns would have pleasantly cleaner air than cities such as Metro Manila, however the pollution, mainly due to these tricycles is just as bad or worse. The motorcyle taxis are the country's most popular form of transport and there are 120,000 in the capital alone.

But a pall of smog hangs over the city and all towns and villages, and the two-stroke engines have been blamed for contributing to the country's worsening pollution problems. However, in cities such as Manila most of the smoke is produced by dilapidated, second hand buses essentially thrown away by the Japanese and South Koreans. These horribly maintained, rolling ocffins, as they are known because of the high rate of fatalities of riders, belch thick, black smoke. However, although the buses blatantly break the so-called anti-smoke belching laws, they are owned mainly by members of the country's economic and political elite, hence the police do not touch them. And as far as the police is concerned, such rules means that they can extort those who break the law for bribes. The destitute and powerless tricycle taxi drivers would now be targeted for such extortion. These two facts is what made the tricycle drivers angry and caused them to protest. Because they know that in the crooked Philippines such laws are used more to extort money from the poor than really do anything to improve the environmental and social situation.

Nevertheless, in November 2002, the World Bank warned that air pollution would cost the Philippines Government nearly $1.5 billion in health care, lost wages and low productivity. A World Bank study found that pollution from particle emissions caused about 2,000 premature deaths and 9,000 cases of bronchitis in the country's four largest cities.