23. Metro Manila’s Challenges: Flooding, Housing and Mobility

Among the many challenges faced by MetroManila, the National Capital Region of the Philippines, three appear as the most pressing issues for the everydaylife of its citizens: housing, flooding and traffic. The rapid increase in population of the metropolitan area had led to a mushrooming of substandard housing and squatting, sometimes in danger areas such as waterways and transport lanes. In a tropical context of heavy monsoon rains and frequent typhoons, riverside slums impeding the flow of water appear as one of the reasons—not the only one—why Manila floods, when at the same time people are placed at high risk. Coupled with a lack of available space throughout the metropolis, the high population density is a major factor of road congestion across the NCR, especially since rail-based public transit is quite insufficient to insure the efficient mobility of people. Tackling these problems may require a new governance for MetroManila, both in expanding its spatial scope and in strengthening its metro-wide powers, since floods are linked to water basins including Laguna Lake, and many relocation sites for evicted squatters are outside the limits of the 17-municipalities official MetroManila.