From Breakdowns to Breakthroughs: The Future of Work
By Chesca Gardaya
Last September 15, 2021, The American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham) had its General Membership Meeting. For this event, they invited MMDA Chairman Benjamin Abalos.
Chairman Abalos took over MMDA last January 11, 2021. To start off his new job, he already had several projects, namely: On-time salary and adjustment of salary to minimum wage, MMDA Monday Program, hiring of 1,000 new personnel, updating LTO registrations of MMDA vehicles, giving free transportation to MMDA employees and frontliners, free x-ray for MMDA employees, regular swabbing of MMDA employees, and vaccination of MMDA employees (at the time of the webinar, they have inoculated 99%).
For the transport and traffic management, they were able to implement the EDSA Bus Carousel. This promotes mass transit with dedicated and continuous bus lanes, eases the travel time of commuters and increases provision of man-lifts for commuters. They also opened the U-turn slots of General Tinio in Caloocan City and Dario Bridge in Quezon City. They fixed and added traffic signals, cleared fly-overs, and opened emergency lay-bys for motorcycles. One thing they feel strongly about is alternative modes of transportation such as bicycles. They have established the Metropolitan Bicycle Network to promote a safe bicycle network to cope with a 250% increase in bicycle users in major thoroughfares.
Speaking of alternative modes of transportation, they are also looking at mobility by river. One project is the Pasig River Ferry Service, which is a free alternative mode of transport with a total of 11 stations at waterways. This includes the Pasig River Ferry Extension to expand inter-regional transport services in Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal with comfortable boats and stations.
MMDA’s main drives are flood control, sewage management, and waste management. MMDA conducted an inventory of waterways in Metro Manila and its pumping stations. For waste disposal/management, they did the Manila Bay Clean-up Drive Operation, where there is an estimated waste generation of 60K m3 or 55% of NCR’s waste generated. They also completed trash traps design and declogging of waterways.
For urban planning, they did the greening of Metro Manila along EDSA and established pocket parks in cooperation with LGUs and tree planting. MMDA also has projects for the arts like one of the most awaited film fests, the Metro Manila Film Fest.
Get John Clements Consultants, Inc.’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
MMDA, in partnership with IATF, is also implementing the quarantine guidelines. The timelines is as follows:
For the new measures being done on the ground, they are implementing granular lockdowns. As of September 15, there are 2,281 affected families under the granular lockdown. To ensure the new quarantine measures, they came out with these restrictions:
Please visit and join the John Clements Talent Community.
About the author:
Self-confessed ambivert Chesca is a bibliophile and a music lover. This mother of two loves trying out something new, especially when it comes to food and beauty.
