Towards A Better Normal: Will Metro Manila become a humanised city post-quarantine?
COVID-19’s arrival has put an abrupt halt to life’s hustle and bustle for Metro Manila, Philippines. For three months, the pandemic has disrupted the patterns of daily urban migration for nearly two million commuter-workers from neighbouring provinces; it has suspended a means of living for many of this megacity’s thirteen million inhabitants. The pandemic has exposed the prevalence of existing issues in Manila, notably limited urban mobility, sparse amenities, and its impacts on the city’s most vulnerable.
Metro Manila devoid of its usual energy is a jarring sight: decongested roads, public markets observing personal space, and the deafening silence of business districts. Military checkpoints guard every major fringe separating Manila’s sixteen different cities, where only essential workers are allowed to cross borders. Every activity outdoors warrants a valid purpose and quarantine pass; activities like jogging were prohibited up until last month. One may find these measures to be draconian, but as a large metropolis in the Global South, the spread of pandemic would grow more rampant if such measures were not enforced.
The halting of non-essential activities in Manila has made city living for vulnerable inhabitants a daily struggle for survival. Quarantining has afflicted nearly 40 percent of the city’s informal employment sector (Nextcity.org 2020), including street sweepers, vendors, transportation drivers, and construction workers. The Philippine government responded to this crisis with the Heal as One Law (Republic Act №11469) on 25 March, a legislative granting the President extraordinary authority to combat the pandemic. Included is the Social Amelioration Programme (SAP) which provides cash assistance to those in the informal sector. Yet economic relief is only a short-term solution for a long-term issue; many of these citizens live in highly dense informal settlements which account for 20 to 35% of Manila’s population (ibid.). Post-quarantine, Metro Manila faces a greater risk of higher urban sprawl, with many of those unemployed flocking to the city to seek opportunities. These demands pose further concerns, including access to public health, capacity development, and securing land tenure for informal settlers.
The government’s initiative to address the metropolis’ congestion is called ‘Balik Probinsya’ (‘Return to the Province’) by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD). It encourages citydwellers (particularly informal settlers) to move back to suburban and rural economic zones in the Philippines. By decentralising socio-economic activities and providing incentives on transportation, livelihood, education and subsistence, lawmakers are hoping these stimuli will lessen vehicular and human congestion in the metro. Local government agencies will consequently support the long-term management of these relocated communities. Institutional support is vital for managing urban sprawl and the consequences of city congestion; admittedly, the Philippines still has a long way to go. Whilst other cities in Southeast Asia have successfully incorporated innovative immediate and long-term urban planning practices, DHSUD had recently been formally established in 2019. Manila is rectifying urban planning tactics it should’ve implemented decades beforehand; however, it opens up the opportunity for tactical urbanism approaches to foster.
Manileños have proven that staying indoors does not deter their drive to assist those most vulnerable, embodying the cultural term of ‘bayanihan’, or of uniting for the greater good. Local private organisations collaborate with the Department of Health (DOH) to provide relief efforts for medical workers and essential workers. Other bottom-up approaches include free transportation services and rent-free properties for essential workers residing outside the metro. Being ‘on the go’ has invoked a newfound sense of resilience for Manileños; local businesses are adapting to this new contactless climate by providing retail goods on wheels. Mobile supermarket trucks offer produce from farmers’ collectives at cheaper prices, roving around towns to cater to residents who need to queue outside supermarkets for long hours.
Technology likewise plays a crucial role in helping improve issues of congestion, mobility, and monitoring of public health in the city; start-ups like Fleet.PH created an application to help logistics deliveries in the Philippines become more visible and optimised during and post-quarantine period. Fleet provides local businesses support in safely reaching their customers, as well as allocating employment opportunities for citizens. Crowd-sourced technology through contact tracing tools also prove potential; numerous applications like PH and BirdsEye encourage self-reporting, using Bluetooth signals to log activity and identify COVID-19 hotspots within major cities in Metro Manila. Tactical approaches such as a simple app can ease feelings of anxiety and apprehension should one wish to walk around a park, head to work, or run errands. Moreover, they can prove vital tools for public and private stakeholders for easing methods of contact tracing. In our digitally inclined world, these apps suggest that the sociability of cities exist in both the physical and technological sphere.
COVID-19 embodies a catalyst for the public and private sector to recognise larger pressing urban issues. Manila is the second most congested city in the world (TomTom 2020). Narrowly planned and disconnected arterial roads discourage permeability, increasing the demand for private vehicles. According to the Green City Index, Metro Manila has an average of 5 sqm of open space per Filipino, at about 0.03 percent. This lags behind Singapore at 47 percent and New York at 14 percent, respectively. Public parks are rife with homeless shelters or micro-paths that cannot accommodate apt guidelines for safe social distancing. Cohesive networks for pedestrians are instead replaced by long, highly vehicular-ised roads lacking the social quality of streets or corners. Insufficient outdoor recreational spaces are replaced by massive concrete highways built atop of the other. Sparse cycle routes and walkable pedestrian infrastructures also leave commuters no choice but to endure the humid weather or cram themselves in stuffed trains, jeeps, tricycles or buses.
Non-profit organisations like Altmobility also advocate for more sustainable forms of transportation through building capacity for workers in the transport sector, as well as campaigning for ubiquitous walking and cycling infrastructures in the city. Their petition has gained 70,000 signatures and has been acknowledged by government agencies in the form of the #MoveAsOneCoalition. The devehicularisation scheme is still in its early testing and planning stages. With most of Metro Manila’s narrowly planned roads and large highways impermeable for cycling or walking, this will prove a challenging initiative indeed. If well thought out, these policies will contribute towards more equitable and social cities, with citizens able to enjoy more recreational urban amenities and a sustainable lifestyle.
Manila is currently in its first phase of easing lockdown restrictions; most job sectors have permitted return to work, public transportation runs on limited capacity, and commercial centres re-occupied. The hustle and bustle of the city has returned. COVID-19 has revealed the pitfalls of unsustainable urbanism practices in Metro Manila, including high urban sprawl, congested networks, and sparse recreational green spaces. Rather than dwell on these negativities, this adversity provides us stakeholders an opportunity to develop a ‘better normal’ for our cities. The transformation the pandemic demands on our urban built environment signals new paradigms for change that must gear towards building a stronger social capital. Tactical urbanism approaches by inhabitants prove that we can make spaces permeable and safe for social distancing.
‘Better normal’ means regenerating our urban amenities rather than starting anew. However, progressive urban strategies by governmental agencies need to be made for the city to safely transition into an urban realm post-quarantine. It means investigating the successes and failures of our actions, of lawmakers changing their attitudes towards sustainable urbanism not as a recourse, but as a necessity. An urbanist’s credo suggests that a great city is one that is socially inclusive and fostering of human relationships. In the post-quarantine climate, this should be the standard for the ‘better normal’ — a city that is not only a hub for economic or commercial growth, but one that is humane and built on ‘bayanihan’ (collaboration for the greater good).
References
Cohn, N. (2019). The TomTom Traffic Index: an objective measure of urban traffic congestion [online]. Available at: https://www.tomtom.com/blog/road-traffic/urban-traffic-congestion/
Economist Intelligence Unit (Siemens) (2012). The Green City Index. Munich: Siemens AG. [online] Available at: http://sg.siemens.com/city_of_the_future/_docs/gci_report_summary.pdf
Nexcity.org (2020). Manila — the Informal City Dialogues. [online] Available at: https://nextcity.org/informalcity/city/manila
Palma, R.A. (2019). Metro Manila needs more public parks and green spaces. Here’s why [online]. Manila: CNNPhilippines. Available at: https://www.cnnphilippines.com/life/culture/2019/8/20/public-green-spaces-manila.html
Roa, A., de Verra, B. (2020). Pandemic raises unemployment to 15-year high [online]. Manila: Philippine Daily Inquirer. Available at: https://business.inquirer.net/299294/pandemic-raises-unemployment-to-15-year-high
