A few months ago, the Department of Transportation announced a rule that sounded almost radical by local standards: Employees were required to commute at least once a week. They must use the same transport systems that most Filipinos rely on every day.

But are DOTr officials still commuting?

DOTr Secretary Giovanni Lopez appears to still be doing it, based on what I see in Facebook Groups… but probably not as regularly as before?

At first, it felt like a win. For once, the government acknowledged that mobility in Metro Manila and other cities is difficult and unsafe. It was also an admission that most officials don’t actually experience commuting the way ordinary people do. They move through MM in cars, shielded from the daily uncertainty that defines commuting for millions of Filipinos.

Back then, the obvious question was whether this rule could help close that gap.

Skip to a few months later, and the title of this blog post matters just as much.

The rule mattered because of what it symbolized. It pushed back against the idea that commuting is something to “escape” once you’ve made it in life. In the Philippines, success is often measured by car ownership, and public transport should be your last resort. Asking government employees, especially higher-level officials, to commute signaled that this mode of moving around isn’t beneath them.

It is, in fact, a normal way to move in a capital where only a few households own cars.

But beyond symbolism, there was the potential for empathy. Even commuting once a week can be uncomfortable enough to teach lessons that no briefing note can.

It also helped rewrite the public narrative. Seeing government officials on trains or buses subtly challenges the belief that public transport is only for those without options. That matters because public pressure and political will are shaped by who is seen using what. If only the everyday commuter used public transport, it would always be underfunded. Normalize it among the decision-makers, and the conversation changes.

But… you want to know the reality? Once-a-week commuting can easily become tokenism. Sec. Lopez can just use this as content for the FB page, or as a pabango tactic to get into the public’s good graces. It’s also easy to stop once media attention fades.

That’s why the timing matters now. The rule has been around long enough that the novelty should be gone. If the commuting requirement was serious, it should still be happening routinely and without fanfare. If it was performative, this is usually the point where it disappears, just collective forgetfulness.

If this policy needs anything, it needs structure. Commuting should be paired with some form of institutional reflection, like short reports that lead to bigger changes, as well as public transport data consistently updated for public and private use. Not sporadic videos on the DOTr Facebook Page.

Through these observations, patterns would emerge quickly, and those would point clearly to where investment is needed.

It also shouldn’t stop at one national agency. Transport is deeply local, and urban mobility often falls under LGUs. If mayors, councilors, and department heads don’t understand daily mobility struggles firsthand, they will keep approving projects that favor cars because that’s the only perspective they know.

Most importantly, those commuting experiences need to show up in budgets. If walking feels unsafe, bike commuting looks scary, and public utility vehicles are unreliable, there should be clear solutions backed up by both hard data and lived experiences.

The Philippines lacks a sustained perspective. As long as policymaking happens from inside cars, car-centric outcomes will continue to dominate. Requiring officials to commute was a small but meaningful disruption of that pattern.

But only if they’re still doing it.