Philippine streets are a killing field. Consider the following facts:

• Health problems caused by air pollution include asthma, lung infections, heart problems, cancers, central nervous system damage and lowered IQs. It is a growing health hazard that has reached monstrous proportions, an epidemic like no other plague we've seen before. And no one, and no community within the metropolis, is immune to this growing health threat.
  
  
• An August 2000 World Bank study on the Philippine environment stressed that air pollution levels are rapidly increasing. In Metro Manila, the level of particulate matter smaller than 10 microns--very small particles that are easily inhaled into the lungs - were found to exceed national air quality standards by a factor of two.
  
  
• Increasing evidence suggests that diesel emissions, which make up the very large proportion of particulate emissions in Metro Manila, are both carcinogenic and mutagenic, meaning they can cause cancer and change a cell's DNA, resulting in serious damage to one's health and possibly death.
• In February 2001, a University of the Philippines (UP) study found that if Metro Manila's worsening air pollution is not immediately addressed, the city will not be suitable for human habitation within 10 years.
  
  
• In an April 2000 international conference in Manila, it was reported that the number of children being killed or sickened by pollution has reached alarming levels. Toxicologists and doctors from more than 30 countries highlighted air pollution as a major cause of respiratory diseases, accounting for up to 20 percent of all deaths of children under the age of five each year. Asthma among children was reported to have doubled over the last 20 years, while allergists noted an alarming increase in cases in Metro Manila.
  
  
• The WHO and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) have found that Metro Manila's air shed is one of the five dirtiest and most polluted in the world, topped only by the metropolitan areas of Mexico City, Shanghai and New Delhi. About 6,000 tons of particulates, chemicals and other pollutants are emitted by Metro Manila's two-to-three million vehicles, hundreds of factories, and households daily. Last year, congressional authors of the Clean Air Act in the Philippines estimated that 10-16 people die every day in Metro Manila of respiratory diseases caused by air pollution, or nearly 6,000 people annually. Most deaths in the metropolis are caused by respiratory illnesses.
  
  
• Metro Manila's air quality crisis grows in scale daily. Vehicle densities, for instance, have increased from 675,310 in 1990 to 1.2 million in 1998, to more than 2 million in 2001. Vehicle density in Metro Manila (636 sq km) has gone from 1,600 per sq. km in 1995 to 3,144 per sq. km in 2000, and has an accelerating rate of growth. There is a direct linear correlation between the number of cars on the road and the amount of pollution in the air. Despite completion of the Edsa MRT, little effort has been undertaken to reduce the 500 or so bus companies operating about 5,000 diesel-spewing buses on Metro Manila's roadways or to relocate any of the bus terminals that clog Edsa. And with any level of economic growth will come increased transport demands. About two-thirds of Metro Manila's air pollution is caused by vehicular emissions while one-third is caused by industry. This situation can and should no longer be tolerated.