TRANSPORT COOP APPEALS TO PRESIDENT DUTERTE TO LET BRT GO AHEAD

A top official stressed that when the Cebu Integrated Transport Services Cooperative expressed support for the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, they did so without being asked by any politician.

“It would be unfair if ingnon ta nga gisugo ta (to say that we were under someone’s orders to do that),” Ryan Benjamin Yu, the coop’s chairman, told SunStar Superbalita Cebu. He also said that Citrasco members were convinced the BRT would help lessen people’s dependence on private cars.

In a letter dated April 30, 2018 to President Rodrigo Duterte, the cooperative appealed to the President to let the BRT project proceed. About two weeks before that, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade and Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino wrote Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez to recommend cancelling the BRT. Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña then wrote Dominguez to ask him to let the project go on.

“The Cebu BRT is a project that will benefit the PUJ (public utility jeepney) industry, residents, workers, and tourists in Cebu, who wholeheartedly supported you in the 2016 elections with the highest margin of votes at 1.4 million nationwide,” Yu’s letter read.

The National Economic and Development Authority’s Investment Coordination Committee decided last week to hire a technical support consultant for the Cebu BRT. That was one of the requirements of the project that the Department of Transportation (DOTr) has so far failed to act on, nearly four years after the World Bank approved a US$141-million package for the Cebu BRT.

“If the implementation delays continue, these will have a domino effect since Cebu City is at the heart of Cebu. It would greatly affect the greater Cebu,” Yu added.