Mayor questions business leader’s role in Mega Cebu
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña questioned the composition of the Metro Cebu Development and Coordinating Board (MCDCB), particularly its executive committee chairman Gordon Alan “Dondi” Joseph.
In his news conference yesterday, Osmeña said that Joseph has no authority to sit down in that body and that Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III should be its head.
SunStar repeatedly tried to call Joseph but didn’t get a reply as of Wednesday night.
The Cebu Business Club, of which Joseph is president, posted on Facebook last April 16 that Cebu City lacks the conditions, like wide enough roads, needed to make the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) work. The BRT happens to be a project Mayor Osmeña has been pushing for.
In the same post, the club said: “What Cebu needs is an intelligent traffic management system that integrates the right solutions like smart traffic lights, intersection improvements, traffic law enforcement and LRT/rail options, among others. We need experts to plan this—not politicians.”
Osmeña has recently criticized Joseph and Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino over their comments on the Cebu BRT project.
Dino’s office has also reposted on its own Facebook page the Cebu Business Club’s comments on the BRT.
Davide is co-chair already
“We will serve notice to MCDCB, especially Dondi Joseph. In effect, he is impersonating a public official,” Osmeña said.
According to the MCDCB website, Joseph has served in the 37-member board since May 2013, as alternate private sector co-chair to Roberto Aboitiz of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. The governor is one of the co-chairpersons.
A bill to create the Mega Cebu Development Authority gained support in the Lower House in 2016 but didn’t get a champion in the Senate before that term ended.
Osmeña said he suspects that some sectors are just delaying the BRT project.
“It’s hurting the City, that’s what I’m reporting to the people of the city. Now it’s delayed again,” he said.
In July 2016, shortly after his fresh term at City Hall began, Mayor Osmeña said that he wouldn’t be participating in the Mega Cebu program of the MCDCB. He questioned the authority of the board, which includes the governor and the mayors of 13 local governments.
“I don’t have anything to do with Mega Cebu. It is Mega Cebu now minus one,” a news report on July 16, 2016 quoted him as saying.
He also said he had felt “really bad” that some proposed projects had been blocked, including a flyover in Lahug and a road concreting project on V. Rama Ave.