Tugade aide clarifies ‘state of mind’ traffic

Transportation assistant secretary for communications Cherie Mercado-Santos took exception to the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s article on Secretary Arthur Tugade’s urging Filipinos to shed the mindset of using “traffic” as an excuse for tardiness.

In a letter to the Inquirer,  Mercado-Santos said Tugade never said ‘Traffic is just a state of mind.”

She said Tugade said: “the prevailing Filipino psyche of using traffic as an excuse must be changed.  That kind of state of mind that automatically uses traffic as an excuse, unnecessarily adds to the problem of traffic.”

“What the Secretary is asking, is a change of psyche, a platform of cooperation for citizens to be part of the solution, for Filipinos to simply be truthful,” Mercado-Santos pointed out.

The Inquirer stands by its story pertaining to the Secretary’s remarks which were part of his speech and which he later confirmed and even repeated in an ambush interview when he was asked to clarify his statement. Jeannette I. Andrade