MANILA, Philippines (The Adobo Chronicles, Manila Bureau) – He has done it before when he ordered the closure of Boracay Island for six months for rehabilitation. It worked, and he didn’t even need emergency powers to do it.

Well, President Rodrigo Duterte is doing it again. He’s seriously considering closing EDSA for six months to finally solve Metro Manila’s main thoroughfare’s unsolvable traffic problem.

”There’s really nothing to rehabilitate about EDSA,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo told The Adobo Chronicles. “The idea is to get motorists accustomed to using side streets to get to and from their destinations. Once they get used to the routine, they won’t even bother to drive on EDSA even after it reopens,” he added.

Talk about mind-conditioning!

Duterte’s move is seen by many as a mockery of the incompetence of the Metro Manila Development Authority  (MMDA)  in coming up with a permanent solution to the traffic problem.

It is also seen as a slap on the face for Senator Grace Poe who refuses to grant Duterte emergency powers to deal with EDSA traffic.

MANILA, Philippines (The Adobo Chronicles, Manila Bureau) – They’ve tried almost everything to solve the nagging traffic problem on EDSA: coding, yellow lanes, banning single occupancy vehicles. They’re even trying to ban provincial buses along the entire stretch of the thoroughfare. To no avail.

Now, the technocratcs at the Manila Metropolitan Development Authority (MMDA) — with full backing from Senator Grace Poe — will start implementing a new, exclusive plan to decongest EDSA, and all it takes is to reroute city buses.

Under the plan,  which takes effect next Monday, city buses headed towards Quezon City from Makati, will make a detour away from EDSA and into one of Metro Manila’s exclusive, gated subdivisions, the Corinthian Gardens (located next to the People Power monument on EDSA).

Poe told The Adobo Chronicles that the new plan proves her `point that no emergency powers are needed to solve EDSA’s traffic problem,  just some common sense planning.

Corinthian Subdivision homeowners are planning to sue MMDA in order to stop the planned detour which they said infringes on their Constitutional right to peace and privacy.