Iloilo City streets are very narrow and the city is always experiencing traffic jams during weekdays. The streets only have at most 3 lanes on each way. A professor of mine said that one of the cause of the traffic jams in Iloilo City is the number of private vehicles in the city. But I can see that not only private vehicles, but, in fact, traffic jams are caused mostly of public utility vehicles.

Iloilo City streets are very narrow and the city is always experiencing traffic jams during weekdays. The streets only have at most 3 lanes on each way. A professor of mine said that one of the cause of the traffic jams in Iloilo City is the number of private vehicles in the city. But I can see that not only private vehicles, but, in fact, traffic jams are caused mostly of public utility vehicles.

Private vehicles are parked illegally on busy streets of the city making the street one lane less. These vehicles are owned usually by the store owners where the vehicle is parked. The traffic policeman are afraid to fine these influential person fearing they might loss their jobs.

Public utility vehicle drivers are staying for more that 1 minute in a loading and unloading area occupying one lane also. Their usual reason is that they are waiting for their vehicle to fill up. These waiting could took as much as 15 minutes, delaying the vehicles at the back and at the same time delaying the passengers to their destination. Most of the PUV (Public Utility Vehicles) drivers had their license by skipping examination by paying under the table fees to speed up process. As a result, vehicular traffic system (e.g. signal on turn, signal on overtake, loading and unloading) is not working well. These drivers are abusing maybe because the traffic police are asking for "kotong" or some amount in exchange of giving the drivers tickets, or they are afraid the drivers will fight back against them if they will be strict.

The Land Transportation Office in Iloilo City should control the issuance of licenses and should be very strict in their examinations. They should also consider the number of vehicles in Iloilo City. In order to account for active vehicles, they should conduct regular renewal of permit to the vehicles. Give deadlines to the ones who had a licenses already and open slots for new applicants. And what if they consider quality over quantity of their traffic policeman? For example, if they have about 90 traffic police with a salary of 10K/month each, trim it down to 30 only and give them a salary of 25K/month but should be strict in implementing rules. They will be also armed with a pistol just like a police man but to be used for traffic cases only.