Dear President Marcos Jr.,

Don’t leave pedestrians and cyclists behind.

Every State of the Nation Address tells us where our country is headed. This year, I listened, as someone who has spent the past several years working alongside people who rely on our roads every day, not behind the wheel of a car, but on bicycles and on foot. Along the way, I have met students who bike to school, workers who walk to save on transport costs, and communities that simply want roads where they can travel safely. Despite this, our road infrastructure consistently fails to reflect their existence.

Mr. President, this is why your 2026 SONA mattered to our community. Like many cyclists and pedestrians across the country, I listened hoping that active mobility would finally be treated as a national infrastructure and climate action priority.

We hoped to hear a concrete roadmap to uphold active transport infrastructure as a vital tool for climate action. Especially in light of the severe, successive cuts to active mobility funding over the past several years.

In the wake of the 2026 budget deliberations, recent reports confirm that your administration has slashed the national budget for active transport infrastructure by a staggering 94%. Despite the pressing need for safer, more inclusive infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, the budget was reduced from P2 billion in 2022 to a meager P105.38 million in the 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA).  

This severe cut directly weakens critical climate action, making it impossible to shift away from private cars, away from dirty fossil fuels, and away from expensive public transportation.

Prioritizing active transportation means maintaining and expanding the protected bike lane networks, improving sidewalks, and pedestrian crossings and directly subsidizing local governments to build walkable communities.

The past few years since the pandemic have proved that safer spaces for walking and cycling are possible. The challenge now is ensuring they do not disappear but only strengthened.

Unless immediate action is taken, our roads will continue to place vulnerable road users at risk. In fact, the Philippine National Police logged a 35 percent jump in road crashes between 2023 and 2024. Today, an average of 32 Filipinos die on our roads daily. These fatalities are directly tied to road design, preventable deaths caused by highways that treat anyone outside an automobile as invisible. 

In your SONA 2026, Mr. President, you rightly prioritized railways and the MRT-7 as major public transportation systems. But not a word was said for the millions of Filipinos who walk and cycle daily. No mention of bike lanes, no safe crossings. For public transport to genuinely embody makatao at makatarungan, our streets must safeguard every user—not just those in cars.

For us, the silence was loud. National infrastructure planning still defaults to motorized vehicles, leaving ordinary workers and students to navigate shrinking budgets and unprotected roads on their own. 

Don’t get me wrong, Mr. President. Expanding mass transit is vital, but every MRT stop and bus terminal begins and ends with a pedestrian or cyclist; without safe infrastructure, even these projects fall short. 

More strikingly, disregarding active transport also weakens our immediate and affordable low-carbon solutions. While promised industrialization and additional transit networks take years to realize, protected walking, and cycling corridors can deliver a direct reduction of carbon emissions as they encourage more Filipinos to shift to non-motorized vehicles.  

Despite these policy roadblocks and shrinking budgets, civil society has refused to stand still. Across the country, youth leaders, cyclists, and climate advocates continue proving that safer streets are possible, even with minimal resources. In the CARAGA region, our team of youth leaders has worked to demonstrate what active mobility looks like on the ground. We have established bicycle parking facilities, launched a campus bike-sharing system, ran road safety campaigns, and brought local government officials to the table for active transport planning. These initiatives may seem modest compared to national infrastructure projects, but they show that people are willing to choose active transport when safe and accessible options exist. Our campus bike-share alone has recorded thousands of student rides, replacing trips that otherwise would have relied on motorized transport. 

Last year, I also participated in the country’s largest citizen-led bicycle count through the Mobility Awards. Across 15 cities, volunteers recorded more than 218,000 people on bicycles. Cycling is already an essential, daily financial lifeline for the Filipino workforce.

Mr. President, communities will continue doing their part—organizing, educating, collecting data, partnering with receptive local governments, and proving that safer streets are possible. On the ground every day, we know exactly where bike lanes abruptly end, where sidewalks disappear into ditches, and commuters dread crossing. These everyday realities must shape national transport and climate budgets.  

This is why your leadership and your voice matter, Mr. President. 

When the national administration actively supports civil society and backs it with real budget allocations in the GAA, local governments gain the confidence to invest their own funds in cycling infrastructure. Agencies align their priorities. Private sector partners become more willing to contribute. Most importantly, Filipinos begin to see walking and cycling not as afterthoughts, but as legitimate, dignified, and sustainable ways of moving. 

So please don’t leave pedestrians and cyclists behind.

Give us transportation systems that protect our climate, save lives, and recognize walking and cycling as essential parts of a system that serves every Filipino the freedom to move.

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ABOUT ELEVENTH HOUR

This article was originally published on Manila Bulletin.

Eleventh Hour at the Manila Bulletin serves a digital space to discuss our organization’s work on supporting the country’s just transition into a clean, affordable, and self-sufficient energy system; advancing sustainable urban mobility to highlight the issues of equity and democracy; and raising public awareness about the need to phase out single-use plastics. It also serves as a platform for Pinoy Climate Reality Leaders to share your stories, promote your climate initiatives, and provide critical insights to issues that matter to climate action, environmental protection, and sustainable development.