I STUMBLE upon this news website about the Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-asa (BP2) Program being suspended on account of Covid-19 and suddenly I’m amazed at how the program by Sen.Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go jives with a longstanding notion of mine on how to solve the perennial traffic woes of Metro Manila. I have in mind, of course, the state of things in the metropolis in the period before the coronavirus pandemic, when vehicular traffic in Manila’s major thoroughfares would stand still for hours on end. People had been complaining about the situation with nobody hitting anything anywhere close to a real solution.

I had been observing though that heavy traffic occurs where and when there is a large influx of commuters. This seemed to indicate that an effective way of decongesting Metro Manila streets is to redirect metropolitan residents elsewhere. But how do you do this when those folks’ source of livelihood is in Metro Manila?