29 years later, we still lack foresight

Since yesterday was a holiday and therefore we had no office, I still went to my office to clear up certain documents and files. As I already wrote in The Philippine Star last August, it was my 30th anniversary as a journalist as it was the day that my mentor, the late Sir Maximo V. Soliven gave me my first press card. It was a year later that late editor and publisher Juanito "Nito" Jabat asked me to write columns for The FREEMAN.

So yesterday as I was browsing and clearing up my stuff, I stumbled upon an article dated Saturday September 19, 1987 titled "The Development of Uptown Cebu" written by me 29-years ago. Back then I wrote, "The planners of Cebu City lacked the foresight for development. Maybe they didn't realize that uptown Cebu would have such a rapid growth and development." First of all, I was amazed that I had written this piece before I wrote columns for The FREEMAN, secondly; I have totally forgotten that I wrote this piece.

Mind you, in 1987, Cebu City was a different, peaceful place where the only traffic happens on Wednesday along Mango Avenue during the weekly Novena for the Mother of Perpetual Help. This was the era before the entry of the shopping malls, which has drastically changed the skyline, and demography of the people living in Metro Cebu and the entry of the Business Process Outsourcing or call center industry came16years later after I wrote that article. How things have changed so much (we are now a 24/7 city that never sleeps) for Cebu City and 29-years later, our planners are still stuck thinking how we should plan a better city. We still lack foresight!

Take the case of the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill. I recall being part of the team that approved its construction 20years ago during my days as Chairman for Infrastructure and Development with the Regional Development Council. We knew that the landfill has a 20-year lifespan, but 20years ago was too far to think of what to do when the day of reckoning comes and indeed it had come.

Today the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill is filled to the brim with no more solutions in sight. The smell and the stench of the landfill has affected the University of CebuMaritime Education Training Center Mambaling Campus by the South Road Properties and depending upon the wind, I'm sure the hundreds of thousands of residents living nearby are just as affected. But what is the suggestion coming out from Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña? To pay each UC-METC student P5,000 as if by giving out this money, the problem or the smell would go away. People tell me that perhaps it was Mayor Osmeña's way of "bribing" the students so that they won't complain about the smell.

Come now, in the old days when Osmeña was young, energetic, and pro-active, you would never hear him come up with a stupid suggestion like what he just proposed. Luckily, he doesn't control the Cebu City Council, and I would like to believe that this proposal would be thrown down the river. But the solutions to solve the problem of the Inayawan Landfill are begging for answers.

At this point, let me say it here that we have seen what they do in Taiwan and in Japan where they burn or incinerate their garbage, which in the end powers the power generator. Our problem stems from the fact that we have environmental laws that are so restrictive that it doesn't give us a chance to visit this "waste-to-energy" technology. I suggest that the Cebu City Council many of whom have now become members of the ruling PDPLaban party, come up with a team to look into this technology, which for me is the best that we can do for our beloved Cebu City.

*** There is no denying that there was a media howl about the way President Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte's less than presidential remarks, especially when he referred to his meeting with US President Barrack Obama, where the foreign press quoted his cursing statement "p----g ia"verbatim, and to their horror, it meant that Duterte just called Obama a "son of a whore." Again, it is the fault of a foreign press that needs to be educated by the Filipino language, even our curses because what Duterte blurted out was merely a figure of speech, which Tagalog speakers use so very often to ridicule. Just imagine how the foreign press would have reacted if Duterte cursed in our Cebuano language b-latsyang i-a!

That foul language forced the cancellation of the meeting between Duterte and Obama. But in truth, the Americans were buying for more time to do their own research on what Duterte meant when he talked about American's human rights violations in Mindanao. Now the Yanks have been reminded of their ugly past when they committed atrocities against Filipinos. Yes, they ought to apologize those killings!