PMA to DOTC: Stop blaming DENR for air pollution

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Medical Association (PMA) yesterday urged the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) to stop blaming the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for the worsening air pollution in Metro Manila and just work with each other to solve the problem.

The PMA said the DOTC should be well aware that it also failed to fully implement the law protecting the environment from air pollution.

“It is a fact that 80 percent of air pollutants in Metro Manila comes from the 3.2 million motor vehicles plying the streets of the metropolis daily,” PMA official Dr. Leo Olarte said.

He said the corruption involving the emission testing of motor vehicles in Metro Manila is to blame for the life-threatening air in Metro Manila. He cited that President Aquino, in a Feb. 16 statement, “said that they found out that the maximum number of motor vehicles that a single emission testing machine can do in a day is only 80 but when they checked the records of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) they discovered that a single emission testing machine is actually testing 600 vehicles a day. This kind of physical impossibility is a major factor why you and I are breathing killer quality air today in the metropolis.”

DOTC spokesman Nicasio Conti earlier said the DENR is the lead agency to protect the environment, but it failed to do its job. The PMA, however, said the law is very clear: the DOTC, not the DENR, is mandated to test the emission quality in motor vehicles.

Olarte said if DOTC Secretary Manuel Roxas II and Conti are “honestly not aware that it is indeed the motor vehicles in the National Capital Region that are the major culprits of air pollution in the metropolis, then for the record we respectfully would like to inform them of this fact.”

Members of civil society groups, the PMA, and running priest Robert Reyes are set to hold an advocacy run on Wednesday toward the DOTC headquarters in Mandaluyong to serve a manifesto on Roxas, urging him to address the air pollution problem in Metro Manila.

“We fervently believe that if the DOTC and its attached agencies, like the (Land Transportation Office), will faithfully do its sacred duty to safeguard air quality against smoke-belching motor vehicles then definitely air pollution will be reduced in Metro Manila by as much as 80 percent,” Olarte said.