Mega Cebu continues to move forward!

For 11 years now, the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) has celebrated the Gabii sa Kabilin (GSK) a.k.a. the Night of the Museums that we copied from Germany. Who would think that such an event would last this long? I’ve attended most of GSK events and somehow it has never been boring. I guess it is because people of my generation love to talk about the good old days when we drank our water from a “banga” or a clay water jug, which kept our water cool, but not cold.

Especially for us who once lived in the Parian District, we love talking about how we got our water from our “tabay” or well behind our house or how we used to play in our open canals which weren’t as dirty as they are today, but gave our bodies a stronger immune system to ward off any viruses. Indeed those were the good old days!

To give us what to expect from GSK on Friday, May 26, we have with us GSK event director Ms. Caroline Ballesteros, Casa Gorordo Museum curator Florencio Moreño, and Christian Bonpua, curator of the Jesuit House, which was built in 1730 and is considered the oldest house in the Philippines.

So watch this very interesting show on the Gabii sa Kabilin on SkyCable’s channel 53 at 8 p.m. with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9 p.m. Monday and at 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday.

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I attended the Convergence of MEGA Cebu Leaders meeting at the Eduardo Aboitiz Development Studies Center last Friday morning and it was quite refreshing that our congressional leaders, led by Rep. Raul del Mar and the newbies, Rep. Peter Calderon and Rep. Samsam Gullas agreed to support the proposed house bill creating the Mega Cebu Development Authority.

What the young folks do not know is that, way back in 1997, Rep. Del Mar and I already tried to push for the Metro Cebu Development Authority along the lines of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA). But Mayor Tomas Osmeña did not support this because he was already quarreling with his cousin, then senator John “Sonny” Osmeña, and both wanted to head the MCDA or at least their “bata-batas”. So in a way it is good that Mayor Osmeña doesn’t want to join MEGA Cebu, which means it would be pointless for him to object to the creation of the MCDA.

This was the first MEGA Cebu Leaders meeting since the passing of our dear friend, the late Mr. Roberto “Bobby” Aboitiz. If there is any legacy that Bobby left RAFI or MEGA Cebu, it is his “Bugsay Principle” whereby he pointed out that Cebu can grow faster if we paddled our bancas in one direction. So if Mayor Tomas Osmeña doesn’t want to become irrelevant in Cebu politics he must also help paddle his banca in the same direction as MEGA Cebu.

Incidentally, congratulations are in order to my dear friend, Mr. Jon Aboitiz for taking up the cudgels in running RAFI from his brother Bobby and consequently taking the leadership of MEGA Cebu in its most crucial time. Mind you, my friends from Davao and other cities who saw my Facebook page could only ask me if they could also replicate this in their cities. I told them, you could do so for as long as your government leaders are open to sitting down with the private sector.

In a related issue, the MEGA Cebu leaders also talked about the traffic problem and that one of its major solutions is to come up with a Mass Transit System. It was then that Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Secretary Michael Dino pointed out that his office has been making the rounds during the Cabinet meetings to push for many road projects, which led to the approval of the P50-billion Metro Cebu Expressway that was announced by DPWH Sec. Mark Villar, wherein he recognized the efforts of Michael Dino in pushing for this monumental highway project which Sec. Villar said he would complete within the term of Pres. Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte. Kudos to Michael Dino, he has proven that he is no pushover and can push for infra projects within Metro Cebu.

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