What has DPWH done to ease traffic in Cebu?

Three years ago, I interviewed on my talkshow Straight from the Sky a fellow whom I felt was very good in explaining the taxes in this country as he has worked with the Bureau of Internal Revenue as a revenue officer. He knew why many BIR officials were corrupt, simply because the system allowed them more than enough leeway to deal with people who would rather pay under the table than pay the government its due in taxes. When I interviewed him three years ago, he was gung-ho that the Philippines should go into a serious tax reform.

Two weeks ago, I got a call from Mon Abrea who is now popularly known as "Mr. Tax Whiz" and was recently selected as a fellow in 2016 search for the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative. In 2015 he was named as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines and is the founding president for the Center for Strategic Reforms of the Philippines, Inc. He is one person who proudly claims that he helped our congressman and senators pass the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law that was signed by President Rodrigo Duterte.

While anti-Duterte critics attack the TRAIN law, Mon Abrea has answers to each and every attack thrown onto the path of TRAIN. To prove his point, he does not only appear on television to be interviewed, but he also came up with a booklet entitled "Got a Question about Taxes?" He simplified a hundred questions about Estate Tax Rate, TRAIN packages, questions by employees and corporations, and he gives these booklets out to interested parties. So if you are clueless about the TRAIN Program, you should watch our show with Mon Abrea or sign up in the TaxwhizPH app and learn to pay your taxes correctly which will also prevent our revenue officers from becoming corrupt!

So watch Mon Abrea, the Tax Whiz, on SkyCable's channel 53 at 8 p.m. with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV's channel 30 at 9 p.m. Monday and at 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday.

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It was headline news in most national newspapers that the Japan International Cooperation Agency came up with their new estimates as to the daily cost of lost opportunities from the traffic congestion in Metro Manila for 2017, which was previously pegged at P2.4 billion a day in 2012, but this has now ballooned to P 3.5 billion a day!

Honestly, I don't know if JICA also came up with the traffic cost for Metro Cebu, I certainly hope that they would do so because our traffic situation is not far from Metro Manila anymore. Who should we pin the blame on this? Well for one, there is the National Economic Development Authority that never gives any priority to major road infrastructure projects. Then we should blame also the Department of Public Works and Highways for not giving any importance to road projects that are designed to ease traffic congestion.

I just got an email from Regional Development Council7 Infrastructure Chairman Mr. Glenn Soco who told me that my pet project, the parallel road to Escario St. has not been funded for 2018. When Pres. Duterte was sworn in as president, his followers like Glenn Soco, RDC-7 Chairman Kenneth Cobonpue, and my good friend Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Lloyd Dino, promised me that they would follow up this road project because after I explained it to them they were convinced that it would ease congestion along Escario Street.

Mind you, I started this project in 2000 when I was CITOM chairman and Escario Street was not really as congested way back then as it is now. But NEDA and DPWH did not give it any priority and now that we needed it so badly, NEDA and DPWH are still not giving it any priority. This is why I'm questioning PA Mike Dino why DPWH Regional Director Ador Canlas is still in his position, when under his watch traffic in Metro Cebu became highly congested. Bureaucrats should not be allowed to serve in Metro Cebu if they have not contributed anything to ease our traffic problems.