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To be on the safe side, just expect traffic to be challenging.
“Instead of half a million people as earlier projected, only around 80,000 members and guests of Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) are expected to flock to the Philippine Arena in Bocaue, Bulacan province, for their annual grand evangelical mission on September 26,” reports Carmela Reyes-Estrope in Philippine Daily Inquirer.
The report noted: “Thus, traffic management officials have scaled down their planned deployment and set aside worst-case scenarios for the weekend congestion on the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx), the main thoroughfare leading to the INC venue.”
Senior Supt. Ferdinand Divina, Bulacan police director, explained that he “would be deploying 500 policemen to augment the 180 traffic marshals from the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and 20 officers from the Philippine National Police-Highway Patrol Group (PNP-HPG).”
Divina added that “the local police had received an assurance that there would be no repeat of the traffic mess on NLEx during the INC anniversary celebration in July at the Philippine Sports Stadium, another venue beside the Arena.” It may be recalled that the said event “created a three-hour gridlock as participants parked their vehicles on three of the four lanes of NLEx.”
The report added that “along with the police, the Manila North Tollways Corp., which operates the NLEx, would strictly enforce a no-parking rule along the expressway.” It stated that “vehicles that could not be accommodated at the Arena grounds could park along the shoulder lanes of the Plaridel bypass road in Balagtas town.”
Photo: Ali Vicoy, Manila Bulletin
