Who takes the wheel in a dictatorship? Mobile imaginaries and transport planning in Metro Manila during Philippine Martial Law, 1972-1981

The Martial Law period (1972-1981) which installed the dictatorship of Ferdinand E. Marcos is one of, if not, the most contested era of Philippine contemporary history. Aimed towards the establishment of a modern and developed Filipino society where citizens are free to reach their fullest potentials, the declaration of Martial Law was anchored on Marcos’ propaganda called Bagong Lipunan (New Society). Interestingly, despite the overwhelming amount of literature on this subject, there were only a few to no studies dealing with the mobility aspect of the said time period. In this regard, I decided to look into Martial Law through a mobility lens with the specific aim of understanding Marcos and his technocrats and cronies’ rhetoric and imagination of mobility, particularly transport, in relation to the idea of Bagong Lipunan. To better understand this, I used Metro Manila as a case study which at that time was consolidated into the National Capital Region following the regional development approach of the Marcos administration. Following a qualitative methodology particularly discourse analysis, I have examined pertinent government documents (i.e. Philippine development plans, Ministry of Transport documents) as well as commissioned studies and news clippings in order to capture the different meanings, ideas, imaginations pertaining to transport of the regime and its key actors. In the end, I have recommended other possible avenues for research, specifically a comparative study between that of Marcos' transport policy and other similar (or contemporaneous) politico-geographic contexts.