RCJ Business Center Rm 305
8 Ortigas Ave Ext cor Countryside Ave
Pasig City, MM, Philippines
Tel: 63-2-661-0653 (Phil) • 925-465-6158 (Calif/Phil)

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CONCORD, California, July 2010—Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We arrived here from the Philippines on June 2 for a two-month furlough. This furlough has been the busiest for us so far. Before we travel back to Manila on August 1, I would have preached in 6 United Reformed congregations outside the Bay Area—two each in California, Oregon and Washington.

Since our last printed newsletter last Christmas, I have continued preaching in our church plant and in other churches at times, teaching at a local Bible school, and maintaining a Christian study center.

Preparing for worship

Church News: Next month, our church plant in Metro Manila, Pasig Covenant Reformed Church (PCovRC) will celebrate its 2nd anniversary. Since that first Sunday afternoon worship service in August 2008, here are some quick facts about PCovRC:

• No. of professing members: 11; baptized children: 5
• Regular worshipers: 10-15 adults, 6-8 children
• Worship: Liturgical, songs from Psalter-Hymnal
• Meeting place: small room in an office building
• Bible study: Saturday afternoons

Last January, I joined a small group of Reformed Christians in organizing a Conference on Theology with Dr. Michael Horton as the featured speaker. It was well-received by about 300 people, many of them expressing a desire to have an annual conference like this. Another exciting result of Dr. Horton’s visit is the regular airing of White Horse Inn at DZFE, a Christian-classical music radio station in Manila

For our meetings, we rent a small room in an office building in a busy part of the city. The room is furnished with a window A-C, enough to cool down 20 souls cramped into the 250 sq ft space (above). We also have a church sign on the building facade (left).

Although we try our best to spread the word about the church in our area, growth is slow. In addition to lack of extra space, we are swimming against the popular tide of entertainment-based worship and prosperity gospel preaching. Next month, we will start promoting the church after the local White Horse Inn broadcast.

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Family News: Our three boys and their families are all doing well. Tim and Chesney, with their two boys Caleb and Tyler, live in the Santa Cruz area, while Lem lives in San Jose. Oli and Nem live and work in LA, while Rachel will be a HS junior in Manila.

Prayer Requests:

• Spiritual and numerical growth
• Larger meeting place
• New Bible studies
• Qualified men for eldership and diaconate

Thank you for your unfailing prayers and support,

Nollie, Evelyn and Rachel Malabuyo
Email: dvopilgrim@gmail.com
Web: blog.twoagespilgrims.com

Tax-deductible gifts should be sent to:

Mission: East Asia National Support
P. O. Box 8434
Bartlett, IL 60103

Please make your check payable to MEANS with the memo line saying “R1612 (FEURM),” our account number.

I admit that my frustration with Manila traffic contributed much to my thoughts in this post. But I believe that the jeepney today, instead of being the blessing that it had been in the past 60 years, has become an archaic relic of the past, an invention that had its day, and should be encased in a museum of Philippine history.

Its predominance in the highways and byways has turned from a blessing to a curse. Because of the lack of discipline, and knowledge of and obedience to traffic rules, regulations and signs, it is the main cause of the horrible Metro Manila traffic. It is the primary culprit of the noxious smog that envelops most urban areas. (How do these chimneys pass the anti-smog inspection?) Most of them have little or no insurance, and coupled with lack of discipline and knowledge, they cause many costly accidents.

The secondary problems that jeepneys cause are many: long commute hours, low-productivity, respiratory health problems, waste of gas, and corruption among traffic police and enforcers, in addition to hearing problems because of the blaring radios!

According to a paper co-authored by Professors Ricardo Sigua and Noriel Tiglao of the University of the Philippines’ National Center for Transportation Studies (NCTS), the annual economic losses due to the traffic mess in the metro area is a staggering 100 billion pesos ($2.2 billion)!

Possible Solutions

It is difficult to pinpoint one or two causes of the huge traffic problems in metro areas because there are many. But in addition to the lack of discipline among all drivers and out-of-control motorcycle and tricycle drivers, I can see two other major contributors.

The first is the number of commuters all day long because, for one thing, even the simplest transactions cannot be done by phone or online, but only in person. What can be done about this? Not much, really, until corruption and dishonesty are kept in check. Online shopping, banking and document processing are probably years, if not decades away from reality, but doable.

The second is the so-called boundary or surcharge system among bus and jeepney operators. How does this contribute to traffic congestion? Simply, in the mad scramble for passengers because their earnings depend on the number of passengers they can get in a day’s driving, drivers stop and park anywhere, even in the middle of the roads, tying up traffic.

As an engineer, I always get into a solutions mode when I see problems and think of ways to improve on how things are done—I also had experience as an industrial process engineer. It would be extremely difficult—some would say even impossible—but nothing less than a comprehensive mass transportation overhaul would suffice, beginning with government ownership. First, jeepneys should be phased out from all major roads and highways and replaced with urban mass transit such as buses and trains. Second, employees of this government-owned transport system should be salaried, which means they get paid fixed monthly salaries that are even better than what they earn today with their hard work. Third, these buses and trains should be operated according to a fixed schedule, being dispatched with frequency based on the time of day. Fourth, all buses from outside Metro Manila should be allowed only at the fringes of the metro area. Fifth, designated bus stops should be strictly enforced.

What happens to all the jeepney drivers and barkers? They would be absorbed and retrained into the mass transport system as drivers, conductors, inspectors, dispatchers, mechanics, janitors, etc. Drivers should be retrained and reprogrammed so that discipline and obedience is hardwired into their brains. The traffic enforcers, in addition, should also be paid regular fixed salaries.

One other thing that seemed to work for the MRT and LRT trains is the seating configuration. The buses could also be configured in the same way, with seats only on the sides for women, elderly and the handicapped, so that the aisles are wide maximizing the density of passengers per square meter of road. There could even be segregation of women, elderly and the handicapped from the rest of the bus, as in the trains. There should be wide doors in the front, middle and back, so the time to load and unload is minimized.

I’m sure that there are many more improvements that mass transport experts can think of to untie the big traffic mess and lessen the misery of commuters.

The above may sound like a pipe dream, but would be a small start and would only work, obviously, if corruption is minimized. The transportation czar should run the system like a business for profit, but with rules and regulations strictly enforced throughout the system.

Now the big question is where to find that honest, incorruptible transportation czar.

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