The Philippines faces a massive public transport shortage made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. We studied Philippine government budget and audit documents over the past decade to understand how infrastructure and public transport budget priorities may have caused this shortage. We find that the national government has budgeted too much on roads and not enough on the people, plants, and animals who use our roads as public spaces. From 2010 to 2021, almost all (99%) of the P2.8 trillion road program budget was budgeted for road construction, widening, and maintenance. A measly 1% was budgeted to expand our road-based public transport supply and capacity. This car-centric approach to infrastructure development has had a deleterious effect on urban mobility. A case example is Metro Manila, where road-based public transport trips have collapsed. From 2012 to 2019, public bus and jeepney trips in Metro Manila's radial and circumferential roads plummeted by 14%, as private car and motorcycle trips surged by 46%. Despite trillions budgeted for road construction, commutes have become longer and harder for the majority of non-home-based workers who depend on public transport. As more people shifted to private vehicle trips, average vehicle travel times increased.
Car-centric public budgeting has harmed not only commuters but car users, too. We need to learn from the past decade's mistakes and work together to get out of this vicious cycle. This means the government cannot merely "Build, Build, Build" its way out of this public transport crisis. National and local governments must spend a greater share of their time and budget on improving road-based public transport supply and capacity and active transport infrastructure. A greater share of scarce road space must be allocated to pedestrians, cyclists, and commuters of road-based public transport. Local governments must be empowered to play a greater role in local transport planning and implementation, given the Supreme Court ruling increasing local government shares in national taxes, which takes effect in 2022. These shifts are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, spur economic recovery, and improve the quality of life of transport workers and the commuting public in the time of a pandemic. We urge transport agencies to veer away from their current car-centered indicators, and move towards people-and nature-centered measures of success.