Wanted: Better firefighting equipment
After I had Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Assistant Secretary Michael Lloyd Dino as my first guest for 2018, I'm following it up with my first interview for 2018 with no other than Land Transportation Office Regional Director Alita Pulga because last week, the LTO finally released the five-year driver's license to those who waited long and hard for these licenses to be released.
Director Pulga rose from the ranks to secure her present position as LTO-7 Regional Director. I knew her a long time ago when she was still LTO Operations Chief and I was head of the Cebu City Traffic Operations and Management (CITOM) more than 20 years ago. Back then it was a surprise to see a woman run the LTO's operations, which is usually a man's job. But then she graduated in Traffic Management at the University of the Philippines, which makes her more than qualified to handle the job.
But in fairness to LTO-7, the delay in driver's licenses or plate numbers is caused by a losing bidder filing a Temporary Restraining Order against the manufacturer of the driver's licenses and plate numbers. Finally, the driver's licenses were released last week and so Director Pulga finally acceded to this interview because she has something good to report.
Another plan that Director Pulga has prepared is to tap the Department of Education to teach traffic rules to youngsters and I fully agree that when it comes to traffic it is certainly better to start them young. When we were kids we were told a simple and basic traffic rules; stop, look, and listen! This is something that needs to be taught once more to our school children.
So watch this very interesting interview with Director Pulga of the LTO-7 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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It was the first weekend of the year, but I had to fly for my first trip to Manila for the funeral of my good friend Consul Bobby Joseph's 28-year-old son, Richard, at the St. James Church inside the Ayala Alabang Village. It was when I opened my Facebook page that I came to realize that there was a huge fire that struck Metro Gaisano in Ayala Center Cebu, which began late evening on Friday and continued on until Saturday forcing the entire Ayala Center Cebu to close its operations on the first weekend of 2018.
As of this writing, black smoke was still coming out of the burnt Metro Gaisano store. According to Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Chief Nagiel Bañacia, the said alert was hoisted to warn motorists and residents against possible the harmful effects of smoke coming from the burning mall. By Saturday thick smoke was still coming out of the building. According to Bañacia, the fire started on the third floor of the store and it spread because the sprinkler system didn't work.
I'm sure that after this conflagration is totally contained, there will be more than enough time for investigators to look into why the sprinkler systems didn't work or how the fire started. It is just a pity that this fire happened just when Cebu was preparing for the Sinulog Festival. Hopefully by then, after a major cleanup, the rest of the Ayala Center Cebu will be opened to the public. Meanwhile from the Facebook posting of my good friend Bañacia, it is evident that the Bureau of Fire Protection doesn't even have facemasks with oxygen so they can enter a smoke-filled building. I don't know if the BFP 2018 budget has funding for this, but I certainly hope that they can procure such important firefighting equipment.
People posted in Facebook their fears that Metro Gaisano would end up like the old White Gold building, abandoned after it was burned. They forgot that the entire complex is owned by Cebu Holdings, which is an Ayala Company and therefore you can expect them to rebuild this establishment.
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