To ease traffic, bring back the barges

How time truly flies. Tomorrow is already Ash Wednesday and therefore, it marks the beginning of our observation of the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads us to Holy Week and eventually to Easter Sunday. It also reminds us that we will have to do fasting and abstinence on these Holy Days. With the IEC over, perhaps it is time for us Catholics to not just show off the ash marks on our foreheads but to truly give meaning to Holy Week and keep our spirits burning with Love for the Lord.

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With the closure of the old Mactan Bridge, every local newspaper headlines warns that traffic to Mactan and back would range from very bad to worse and those predictions proved to be correct. More than 10-years ago, I already predicted that we would need a third bridge to Mactan as Cebu would experience an unprecedented economic growth.

Few people listened when I said that the gestation period for a government infrastructure project would be a minimum of 10-years. I wrote this because that's exactly what happened when they planned, budgeted, and finally constructed the Marcelo Fernan Bridge and I was the Infrastructure Committee Chairman of the Regional Development Council (RDC-7) at that time. So I know what I'm talking about.

However there is good news on the horizon when the Tollways group or the Metro Pacific Tollways Development Corporation of Manuel "Manny" Pangilinan bagged the P27.9 Billion (US$ 594.68 Million) contract to finance, build, operate, and maintain a toll bridge between mainland Cebu and the Municipality of Cordova. But the bad news is, they are still in the planning mode and the earliest date of construction is next year and completion is expected to be done by the Year 2020.

Anything can happen in four years, Cebu's economic growth could be stifled because traffic would become unbearable. Mind you, it is already unbearable now where a trip to the Mactan Cebu International Airport is a three-hour proposition going on one way. So what's our alternative? This is what was discussed during the 888 News Forum at the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel with Rep. Luigi Quisumbing and Carlo Fortuna and Mr. Bobby Joseph in the presidential table with moderator Ricky Poca.

Mr. Bobby Joseph suggested reviving the barge from Mandaue to Mactan and a ferryboat from Cebu City to Opon. This is a great idea so that at least motorists are given a 3rd alternative route. In fact I also know that the Magsaysay Lines kept their ferryboats running from Pier One to the Muelle Osmeña Wharf in Opon. So let's fast track all these suggestions so at least there are alternative routes to Mactan than for our motorists to suffer those grueling three-hour trips to Mactan and back.

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If there is anything seriously wrong with our military leaders, they end up becoming like politicians, making promises that they can't keep. During the last years of her presidency, then Presisdent Gloria Macapagal Arroyo vowed to put an end to the decades-old communist insurgency before her term ends in the 2010. This presidential promise was fully supported by her top military officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. But we all know what happened then. It was a failed promise.

Comes now, didn't we already tell you that we Filipinos never learn from the mistakes of the past? That's true! Well, I just read a news report that Armed Forces chief Gen. Hernando Iriberri has ordered the military unit in Sulu to finish off the Abu Sayyaf before the end of President Benigno Aquino III's term in June. This order was given to Col. Alan Arrojado, commander of the Joint Task Group Sulu last Friday.

While I do not doubt that the AFP has the capacity and even the will to finish off the Abu Sayyaf if it is serious in this endeavor, however, it is easier said than done. But Gen. Iriberri's mistake is putting a political timetable on this noble mission to finish off the Abu Sayyaf before the term of Aquino ends in June this year. This brings us to the question why didn't the AFP top brass make this pledge at the beginning of the Aquino presidency that they would finish off the Abu Sayyaf on the first year of the term of Aquino?

The AFP's biggest problem in Sulu is that, just like all insurgency problems, the Abu Sayyaf can easily blend with the civilian population and disappear from the scene. They can even escape to nearby islands until June and when PNoy announces that the AFP under him have finally finished off the Abu Sayyaf, suddenly they can resurface and embarrass the AFP and the president.

So allow me to warn Gen. Iriberri not to make empty promises because he sounds more like a politician than a military man. Now what about the communist insurgency? Will the AFP finish this too?

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