How many more wake up calls do we need?
With traffic in Metro Cebu now dubbed "Worst City to drive" by Waze, we should take this report as our wake up call to fix our problems, which brings me to what we have always said a long time ago, that the biggest problem of the Philippines is not lack of brainpower or initiative or even lack of money, but it is that we just don't fix our problems. This is why I read with great interest the proposal from Regional Development Council (RDC-7) Infrastructure Development Committee (IDC) in Central Visayas to include Metro Cebu in the emergency powers being sought for President Rodrigo Duterte to solve our monstrous traffic problem. But do we need it?
Last Sunday afternoon, my good friend, Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino rang me up to ask me for the details of the parallel road to Escario Street so instead of just having a phone conversation, I joined him in a meeting with Mr. Glenn Soco, IDC chairman, Ms. Melanie Ng, chair for Economic Development Committee, Mr. Wally Liu and Mr. Kenneth Cobonpue and Engr. Fortunato Sanchez, Jr. of Mega Cebu. Frankly speaking, this is the kind of meeting that puts me in my element.
But then, I have attended too many such meetings in the past with the aim to solve our city's problems but alas our destiny is not in our hands. Otherwise, we would have long licked those problems a long time ago! So the big question that we ought to ask ourselves is, how many more wake up calls do we need before we get to move things that we should have done yesterday?" Are our traffic problems in Cebu so insurmountable that we just can't put a timetable to fix these problems? Mind you, among the Local Government Units in Metro Cebu, it is only under Mayor Luigi Quisumbing who has taken traffic management seriously by instilling discipline with motorists passing through Mandaue City. Kudos Mayor Luigi!
Again, let me reiterate what I have been harping through all these years that if only someone (like the DPWH) listened, Cebuanos today would not be suffering the daily traffic congestion in Metro Cebu. I just saw a video presentation by the Department of Transportation that the cost of daily traffic congestion in Metro Cebu has reached P247 million per day. If you came up with the average cost of a flyover at less than a billion per project (this is on the high side), which means that in just four days of that cost would be enough for a flyover. Then add three more on the route from Cebu City to Lapu-Lapu City via Mandaue, it means that in a year time we would have solved our traffic congestion. But then it takes things simplistically.
But if we put all our energies, our hearts, and minds into solving our traffic problems, we really don't need emergency powers to fix our problems. If at all, what we need really is for President Duterte or DPWH Secretary Mark Villar to order our DPWH officials here to show some kind of transparency and inform the public what plans they have on the pipeline, and what projects do they have for 2017 that would help ease our traffic congestion?
I was with Communications Secretary Martin Andanar last Friday and he told us that the Freedom of Information exemptions will soon be out, so I told him that the first agency that I will test is the DPWH. So will the DPWH officials be transparent to the media? We'll soon find out.
Meanwhile, I advised the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas that he should take the cudgels on infrastructure in Metro Cebu and focus on this as we have lost precious six-years under the Aquino regime that failed to give us infrastructure development. Secretary Michael Dino shouldn't dabble on the other facets of traffic management, as this is the purview of the local governments. A case in point is Mandaue City's aggressive traffic management while Cebu City has remained stagnant, and I guess the same thing is happening with Talisay City. In Minglanilla, officials there are still at a loss on how to solve their traffic problems.
For the south, the solution to the traffic problems was presented to you by gubernatorial candidate Winston Garcia that he would reclaim the shoreline from Talisay all the way to Carcar. Such a novel proposal would have opened up not just a new roadway that would have eased the traffic in the south, but new lands for development as well. Thanks to the Liberal Party in using the Precinct Count Optical Scan or the Optical Mark Reader machine to their advantage. Winston Garcia lost his gubernatorial bid, while Governor Hilario "JunJun" Davide III who presented nothing to the Cebuano voters, won his reelection bid.
So in the end, we are back to square one. My proposal for instance for a parallel road to Escario Street is now 16-years old and the traffic congestion along that road has become unbearable. So will DPWH listen to our suggestion and finally come up with the budget that would give Cebuanos a break by opening up this much-needed parallel road to Escario? If DPWH officials refuse to listen, then I think it is time for heads to roll!
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