These are my thoughts. Not the proposal's — mine.

Metro Manila is not the first city to face this problem — not even close. Cities around the world have already solved it, or are in the process of solving it. What frustrates me is that we keep acting as if there is no roadmap to follow. There is. We are late, but as the saying goes — it is better late than never.

We are actually in the right position to make good decisions. The data exists. The case studies exist. Other cities have already made the mistakes so we do not have to. The question is whether we choose to use that knowledge or continue to rediscover it on our own.

I will be upfront: I have been working from home ever since. I do not ride public transit daily. But I want to be honest about why — because I think it is the same reason millions of Filipinos opt for private vehicles instead.

The system was not built for them. Car-centric policy did not just fill the roads with cars — it made public transportation so unreliable that choosing it feels like a sacrifice, not a commute. And if someone who genuinely cares about this issue is still not on the bus, what does that say about the millions who do not?

The number of commuters today is already overwhelming the system. Imagine if more people who currently rely on private cars actually shifted to public transit. The demand is already there. The infrastructure is not.

Every Filipino I know who has been to Taipei, Singapore, or Hong Kong has taken the train. Not because they had no choice — but because it worked well enough that they never even thought about driving. These are not distant cultures. They eat similar food, they are relatively close neighbors, and the urban conditions are not that different. Yet they managed to build transit systems that their own people actually use. So I do not understand why we keep acting like it cannot work here.

I ask this genuinely, not as an attack. The NSCR is on its way. The subway ROW issue has been resolved. The North Triangle Common Station — I heard a consortium has been completed. These are real moves and I acknowledge them.

But for the daily commuter in 2026, the question is still the same: does it work yet? If yes — beautiful. If not — are we not supposed to move forward and try better solutions alongside what is already being built?

MBT is not a replacement for the subway or the railway. It is a complement — something that can be built and running while the bigger infrastructure takes shape over the next decade.

The number of people affected keeps growing. Every time I visit another city and see a functioning transit system, I am reminded of how achievable this actually is. The answer is not complicated: build more subways, build more trains. And if that future arrives — if Metro Manila one day has a complete rail network — then Manila Busway Transit may no longer be necessary.

I have made peace with that. The goal was never MBT. The goal was always the commuter.

I have also never submitted this proposal directly to any government office — not yet, at least. But I want to. Especially this newer version. The idea is not terrible. Sometimes I think that what the government and private entities have been attempting in Metro Manila is actually harder to pull off than what MBT is proposing.