MANILA, Philippines — Senator Grace Poe was saddened by President Rodrigo Duterte’s pronouncement that he is intentionally leaving Edsa in its current state after his request for emergency powers has not been granted.

“It’s sad that he said that. I’m not giving up on Edsa and neither should we,” Poe, who chairs the Senate Committee on Public Services, said in an interview over ANC’s Headstart on Thursday.

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Poe cited several projects such as the completion of the NLEX-SLEX connector road which is expected to take away 100,000 cars off Edsa, developments in LRT-1 (Light Rail Transit-1), and improvements in areas in Edsa identified as chokepoints through training of traffic enforcers.

“With or without emergency powers, actually without emergency powers, a lot can still be done,” she explained.

In August, Duterte said that would just “let Edsa rot there” without him having emergency powers to address transportation and congestion issues in Metro Manila.

In another speech a month later, the President repeated his stance, saying he intentionally left Edsa in its current state after Congress failed to grant him emergency powers.

“Sinadya ko talaga ‘yan. Pagdating ng panahon p***** i**, meron na ngang solution eh sabihin niyo ‘corruption’ … Yan ang legacy niya. Make it a legacy ng pagka-politiko. It’s not mine,” Duterte said referring to Poe. /muf

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