The ram has touched the wall

After everything that has been destroyed, after everything that has been built, and all the hassles that the public has suffered, there is now a call to halt the construction of the Bus Rapid Transit along a stretch of Osmeña Boulevard because its planned stations obstruct the view of the Capitol Building.

The call comes from the Cebu City Council. “There is…an impending permanent desecration of one of our most recognizable and valuable cultural assets here; a historical, political, socio-cultural landmark that survived a world war, the ebb and flow of our political tides, and the ravages of time for eight and a half decades,” said Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia, who is also head of the city’s Cultural and Historical Affairs Commission (CHAC).

We plead no contest to the fact that the Capitol Building is one of the most beautiful and striking buildings in Cebu and looking at it instills a certain awe in some of us.

However, the grand view of the building from most of Osmeña Boulevard is something that has been lost to the public a long time ago.

If they are worried that it can no longer be viewed from Fuente Osmeña this is unfounded; the view from the rotunda was long ago already obscured by concrete islands, Indian trees, and traffic lights, so there was really nothing to lose to begin with.

As the ancient Romans used to say: The ram has touched the wall, another way of saying is already too late to halt the BRT construction or make changes to the design of the BRT stations.

Do they mean for the public to wait even longer amidst more traffic as designs that are more acceptable are being made? Then for those structures already built --those steel stems-- to be demolished and for something else to be put in place?

Of course, we cannot blame CHAC for wanting to preserve the beauty of our monuments and this sudden opposition to the design of the BRT stations indicates that it was made without some consultation with groups like CHAC.

That was something that should have been done at the beginning. Now it is an oversight that threatens to complicate something that should have been as straightforward as a BRT route.