To achieve change we must change our ways!

Tomorrow is an important date for me because a year ago my kidney surgeon Dr. Alvin Roxas and his medical team operated on me and my donor who gave me a new kidney… and when I got out of my induced sleep, Dr. Roxas told me that Nov. 8 is my new birthday! Indeed, I spent half of the year 2016 getting myself ready for a kidney transplant, the most important of which is to get a donor that would be a good match. Call me lucky that in six months I found my match and the transplant operation was scheduled for Nov. 8, 2016 at the Vicente Sotto Medical Center (VSMC).

Because I wrote about my medical issue in my columns, so many people have asked me why I chose a government hospital for my kidney transplant. Little did people know that the VSMC is literally a branch of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) and that all medical tests from Cebu (or from Davao if you are operated there) are sent to NKTI.

For those who want to know how I am after a year of getting a kidney transplant… let me say that I’m still 80 percent from what I use to be. This is due to certain medical issues that plagued me in the first three months after my operation, where I was in near total isolation. I haven’t resumed playing my usual golf that I used to play three times a week. Thanks to the recent rains in Cebu, I just had to give up golf until the course dries up.

Lastly, I do get easily tired and I guess that’s because I have to take numerous anti-rejection pills, which have already been reduced. But most of all, we thank God that a year has passed since my kidney operation. I thank my family for their utmost support in my most trying times. Praise God!

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Over the weekend, we were greeted by a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey conducted last Sept. 23-28 that showed that only 35 percent of Filipinos believe that Pres. Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte could fulfill his campaign promises. When the same question was asked last June 2016 63 percent of adult Filipinos believed that Pres. Duterte could keep his promises. Of course a lot of things have happened to the Duterte administration in the last 15 months under the Duterte presidency.

Perhaps the problem lies on the fact that we Filipinos want instant change and unfortunately that cannot happen with today’s system of governance. A case in point is the worsening traffic problem not just in Metro Manila, but also in Metro Cebu, Davao and Cagayan de Oro City. I dare say that for as long as motorists do not change their ways and learn to adopt a courteous attitude toward other drivers traffic will always be a problem.

In Cebu City for instance, trucks and other slow vehicles drive on the leftmost side of the road rather than on the right side, especially along the South Road Properties (SRP) or along the Ouano Ave. in Mandaue City, which are the widest roads in Metro Cebu. For as long as motorists block the intersections causing a gridlock, nothing will change in our streets in spite of Pres. Duterte. But it is not for lack of trying.

The Duterte administration embarked on child safety measures to prevent children from getting into motorcycle accidents. But despite this new law, this is one of the most violated traffic laws anywhere, not just in Cebu but all over the country. Yet we want immediate change? It can happen only if we changed our ways and ourselves!

In fairness to the Duterte administration, they want to pursue that change, but certain groups just do not want to change. A case in point is that nationwide jeepney strike last September staged by many jeepney organizations allied to leftist groups who are opposed to the plan of the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to implement jeepney modernization by the end of the year. These leftist groups allied with the underground Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) don’t want jeepney drivers to change because if they do… things would be better for these drivers and the leftist organizations supporting them might just become an irrelevant factor in their daily lives.

In Metro Cebu for instance, except for an underpass that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) had begun to construct, nothing has started because the Duterte administration is still lining up the funds and plans for the much needed infrastructure projects.

Worse, the potholes in many of our damaged roads in Cebu City have turned to moon craters because the workers in Cebu City blame the rain that hampers their work. We taxpayers continue to pay their salaries, yet they cannot even patch up our broken roads because City Hall employees have become experts in giving out excuses to Cebuano constituents. Surely Pres. Duterte has yet to deliver to the Filipino people things like that shift toward a federal form of governance, which is just taking too long.

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