Signs of many shapes and sizes litter about our metropolis. Whether it’s to govern behavior, advertise a business, or assist in the general wayfinding of the city, our signs serve a significant purpose in how we go about our everyday lives.

When you get used to seeing one thing all your life, you very rarely think of questioning it. Luckily for you, this blog can walk you through about our familiar friend and foe: No Parking.

No Parking goes way, way back… even way beyond the first invention of automobiles. Dating back to 700 BC, put in place by King Sennacherib on a procession, a set of cuneiform inscriptions carved on a wall says the words: “Royal Road – let no man decrease it”. Wrongfully parking a chariot was punishable by death, with the corpse impaled and displayed outside for the whole world to see.

Now that’s intense!

Obviously, parking restrictions aren’t as severe as they are now, but it’s fascinating to know that even our ancestors have made sure of regulating the streets. Eventually, road signs evolved over the years, and we have what we have today!

While we have Bawal Pumarada Dito, No Parking has cemented itself as a more reliable phrase to use. We had our Western influences in our traffic regulations, coupled with the fact that this is commonly used in media representations. Why stray from its familiarity?

Even the DPWH guidelines themselves discourage the use of Filipino in signage. As Filipino text tends to be lengthier than its English counterparts, the department generally discourages its use “unless absolutely necessary and useful”.

There are many accounts on a primarily English linguistic landscape of our metropolis. If you’d like to know more, check out our paper and its related literatures.

The barangay officers we interviewed both mentioned the frequency of disputes that come with parking. Within residential areas, this constant competition of space is exactly why some residents have opted to make their own signage.

Informal signage is a form of communication in its own right, a form of negotiation between people.

At the end of it all, these handmade signs show how people manage shared space on their own. These makeshift, DIY signages are our kind of grassroots regulation. A self-made system to fill a gap that wasn’t initially filled by local governance.

But grassroots responses come with limitations. We aren’t equipped to answer this all on our own. A lot of the signs we see now are dilapidated, rusted, unusable, because the materials at our disposal were just never built for long-term use. Sure, this tells a story of resilience, but how many times have we been sold that story before? More than anything, it’s a story of neglect. Most of the informal signage that we see are symptoms of a lacking system.

Real, lasting change requires systems that match people’s effort.

We shouldn’t be alone in this.

We highly recommend checking out our three-part series on the topic for a more visually-engaging experience on informal signs.

Or, if you prefer to experience our sign-filled metropolis firsthand, take a stroll and capture photos of fascinating signage yourself. Help us document them through our sign map!

Most of what we say is derived from our own research. If you’re interested in reading more about the socio-spatial analysis of informal signage in Metro Manila’s public spaces, read here.

Miguel, C. G. B. (2019, October 26). A complete guide to no parking signage in the Philippines. philkotse.com. https://philkotse.com/safe-driving/a-complete-guide-to-no-parking-signage-in-the-philippines-5730/amp