There are many kinds of public transportation you can take to travel around the country. You can travel by sea, air or land to move about. The most common is to travel by land with the use of motorized vehicles.  This can be a bus, van, taxi, tricycle or jeepney. Jeepneys are the most widespread as it is one of the cheapest mode of travel while tricycles come in second as they are also cheap and used for shorter distance travel which can traverse through narrow roads.

An example of a Jeepney.

Last September 8, 2015, Metro Manila, the National Capital Region (NCR) of the Philippines, experienced a massive traffic due to heavy rain which lasted over an hour on evening. This is a metrowide gridlock wherein most roads became flooded and some were impassable. Click this link to view the picture. There was no storm that time, just a heavy downpour. Many of my friends who were going home at 9 p.m. were supposed to arrive by 10 p.m. arrived at past 1 a.m. Classes and office works were not cancelled even if most people slept little. A report from CNN Philippines shows other pictures from netizens.

One of my travels on going home when I got stuck on traffic.

What happens in NCR can also happen to other parts of the country if they will not learn from these unfortunate events. Traffic is caused by many factors such as flood, rush hour, undisciplined drivers and so on. Travelling by train is also hard as our trains here are always packed and delayed most of the time. Also, the Philippine National Railway (PNR) had halted their express travel to the provinces due to rail track damages so they only cater people from the Metro region. Public transportation had become a daily challenge to us as we must keep ourselves safe and sane. Passengers here and there complain and there are a lot of pickpockets.

One of the trains of PNR.

Inside on one of the trains of PNR. This is a train which accomodates only 200 passengers on the first station.

If the government would take hold of public transportation instead of the private sector then it will become efficient and safe. This is one of our problems. Most of our utilities and services are owned by the private sector. Also, vehicle vendors offer vehicle plans in which you can buy a vehicle with a minimum downpayment that attracts a lot of people to purchase them easier. These schemes exponentially increased the number of vehicles on the road in just half a decade.

There are a lot of ways to solve these problems. First is to strictly implement traffic rules and regulations so people will follow instead of bypassing them. Second is removing corrupt traffic enforcers and stop their culture of implying bribe to drivers. Third is improving public transportation especially the train systems by providing more trains and regular maintenance of these systems. Fourth is promoting the use of electric vehicles both for the public utility vehicle drivers and private vehicle drivers to lessen air pollution and economically save themselves from a lot of maintenance. Fifth is to continually educate everybody about being a responsible citizen on the road.

All pictures used were captured by me.