Implementation will fix Cebu’s traffic woes

Allow me to reprint the headline story that came out in The Freeman last Sunday….” To address the burgeoning traffic problem in Metro Cebu, Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino yesterday proposed the Metro Cebu Transportation Plan, a P170million comprehensive study on Cebu’s transport system that will become the basis of all transport-related programs and projects in Cebu and budget allocation for the following years.

The study can be finished in six months, Dino said, and the amount will be realigned from the Department of Transportation’s budget. Dino made the proposal during the House of Representatives’ committee on transportation hearing on Cebu’s traffic crisis held at the Waterfront Hotel in Lapu-Lapu City yesterday. “We have known this malady before and this malady, according to experts, has cost Metro Cebu an average of P145 million estimated average losses in productivity. Add to that the physiological and psychological impact to the motorists, passengers and pedestrians,” Dino said during the hearing.

I was invited to that public hearing by the House of Representatives’ committee on transportation, but last Saturday was the only time I had to leave the hospital after the removal of my gallstones and it was painful to walk around… plus the fact that Waterfront in Mactan is just too far from my house. I decided not to go.

But I would have objected to this six-month study proposed by Presidential Assistant Michael Dino

who in the same news report said, “Cebu and the Cebuanos are desperate to solve the traffic problem. In desperate circumstances like this entails a desperate move and we are one in saying that one and only desperate move to solve traffic congestion is the emergency powers of the

President.” I already held a meeting with Michael Dino and his group…after all many of the solutions to solve Cebu’s traffic problems were never given any importance simply because I was hated by the Ruling Liberal Party (LP) that held power in Cebu for six years.

For most of those six years under Pres. Aquino, he only gave us lies and propaganda that he gave so much for infrastructure in Cebu. But the reality on the ground was totally different. If at all traffic between Mandaue City and Mactan Island had worsened… blame it on the six years of “Noynoying”! Frankly speaking, I expected that public hearing to be the trigger for the implementation of solutions to our traffic problem. In truth we do not need P170 million to study how to solve our traffic problems, what we need are flyovers that decongest our clogged intersections.

Even the ordinary commuter that rides between the two bridges from Mactan to Mandaue knows how to solve our traffic problem. Perhaps the problem lies upon House committee on transportation chairman Rep. Cesar Sarmiento who is new on the job and saw that traffic in Cebu isn’t as bad as they thought. He conveniently forgot that Waze already tagged Cebu as the “Worst City to Drive in!” Frankly speaking… this is my first critique of the Duterte Administration… simply because the President doesn’t know what is happening on the ground in Cebu.

Incidentally, former President Fidel V. Ramos who supported the presidential bid of Mayor Duterte came up with a not-so-kind-report about Pres. Duterte’s first 100 days in Office. FVR said, “The country is “losing badly” because the government has not hit the ground running during the first 100 days of President Rodrigo R. Duterte. In the overall assessment by this writer, we find our Team Philippines losing in the first 100 days of Du30’s administration – and losing badly. This is a huge disappointment and let-down to many of us.” This was written in his column last Saturday in the Manila Bulletin and I share his exact sentiments.

Mind you that public hearing last Saturday at the Waterfront Hotel in Mactan was to find out the sentiments of the public with regards the emergency powers to be given to Pres. Duterte. But instead of just doing it the Nike way… they decided to let the committee come up with a study. Even Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña joined the bandwagon suggesting that in order to ease traffic in the two bridges that connect the mainland and Lapu-Lapu City, there should be a ban on private cars passing the Marcelo Fernan Bridge and the Mandaue-Mactan Bridge during peak hours.

Mind you, Mayor Osmeña is no Johnny-comelately to Cebu. Perhaps we ought to ask him what he did to ease traffic six years ago? If his suggestion was so good… why didn’t he implement it when the Liberal Party was in power? That’s what six years of blind acquiescence does for you. It is a fact that half the folks that attended last Saturday’s meeting gave a Duterte fist pose… used to sport the “L” sign just a hundred days ago. This is why in solving Cebu’s traffic problems they send it to a six month study! * * *

E-mail: vsbobita@mozcom.com or vsbobita@gmail.com.