Palma shouldn’t intervene

With due respect, Archbishop Jose Palma shouldn’t intervene in the nonsensical verbal tussle between Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña and Land Transportation Office (LTO) 7 Director Victor Caindec. He should leave the verbal tussle to themselves and for the public to judge. The intervention would only glorify these two public officials, who are mandated by law to serve the public and not squabble in public.

The tiff between Mayor Tomas and Director Caindec started when the latter allegedly divulged in public personal matters during a radio interview. But this matter leaves so much to be desired.

While some people may have been entertained by the squabble with their jargon, passengers and motorists caught in the traffic snarls along Mambaling on their way to and from the south are actually heaping curses at these officials. The humongous traffic in Mambaling is caused by the slow-paced construction of an underpass by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) through a contractor.

With the present traffic situation, even if a hundred traffic enforcers are assigned there would not matter. The act would only mitigate the problem but not totally solve it. At the start, the DPWH and personnel from the Cebu City Traffic Office (CTTO) and the police should have mapped alternate routes for public utility vehicles and private cars. But the DPWH just passed on the problem to the City Government for it to provide alternate routes.

That the DPWH did not coordinate properly with the City could have something to do with the present political setup. Mayor Tomas is not aligned with PDP-Laban, the administration party. But as I have said earlier, officials and employees of national government agencies should perform their mandated work and leave politics to politicians.

With the high pay for workers doing their thing at night, I doubt if the contractor would have opted to do the construction work in the evening. Conversely, I don’t think the contractor would care much if every day there is a traffic gridlock in the area.

It’s really sad to see garbage dumped on roadsides or in the corners of streets in different parts of Cebu City. They’re eyesores. Rodents and flies abound there. But I have yet to hear City Government officials complain or take actions to solve the problem and make the city clean and tidy.

The situation is even made worse by the messy collection of garbage from the households. Garbage collectors don’t care much if they scatter trash on the streets, after all they would just say they are doing their job and whatever rubbish are left behind or spilled in their rush to collect garbage can be picked up by street cleaners later.

The Cebu City Council is dominated by the opposition. But would they compel the executive department under their political archenemy, Mayor Tomas Osmeña, to keep Cebu City clean and tidy? The opposition councilors could not just cross their arms and say that the garbage problem is the mayor’s headache.