The bodies of the bus crash victims have finally been flown back to Iran via an Iran Air Boeing 747, which gives us an idea of how an oil-rich nation like Iran would go to extreme lengths to bring their fallen citizens back to their home country. When Filipino Overseas Foreign Workers (OFWs) get into some kind of trouble, more often than not, they are left very much on their own. While our politicians call them our modern day heroes (because their annual dollar remittances have kept our economy afloat) there’s really nothing much for the government to crow about helping our OFWs.
So call it a great blessing that somehow the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) have finally agreed to waive the fees imposed on banks that use the Philippine Payments and Settlements System (Philpass) remit system in order to help reduce the cost of sending those remittances back home. The idea behind this move by the Monetary Board is to help enable banks to lower their remittances fees. However the Monetary Board only approved this measure for six months.
This brings us to the question why is the Monetary Board only reducing this cost for only six months? Don’t they know that Filipinos abroad always send remittances whenever they can? I would like to say that the BSP should waive their bank fees on OFW remittances, period! This is one way that the Philippine government can support our OFWs who in turn has kept the economy of this nation afloat even in the most trying of financial times, when supposedly financially sound western nations are experiencing problem in their economies. I hope that the Monetary Board under BSP Governor Amando Tetangco would reconsider their decision.
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Now that the bus tragedy at Transcentral Highway is no longer headline material, I’m sure that our public transportation drivers will let their guard down and very soon forget that this incident happened at all. Even former Governor Emilio “Lito” Osmeña pointed out that the Transcentral Highway is safe for all types of vehicles mentioning that every now and then he always uses the Transcentral Highway when he goes to the northern part of Cebu. Lito lives in Busay and I fully agree with him that it is shorter for him to go to the north via the Transcentral Highway rather than go down to Cebu City then pass through Mandaue City on his way to the north.
However, I must disagree with Lito that the Transcentral Highway is perfectly safe because it is not. Certain sections of the road are even hanging and the jagged rocks along its steep slopes are a landslide waiting to fall on unsuspecting vehicles. In fact, I dug out a column we wrote way back on April 14, 2008, were we printed a letter from Dr. Roberto E. Aboitiz of the Cebu Industrial Park Developers, Inc. (CIPDI), where the Tsuneishi Shipyards are operating in Balamban, who was obviously indignant by the snail’s paced work done by the Department of Public Works & Highways (DPWH) to fix and maintain this national road.
Because his letter was quite long, allow me to reprint only the pertinent parts of his letter, “Of late, however, many sections of the Transcentral Highway are failing, slipping and eroding. There are many areas even where the road pavement is literally floating. Recently our Japanese investors and other foreign guests have been forced to take the much longer and more circuitous Naga-Toledo road, the old route before the Transcentral Highway came up. They have raised serious concerns on their safety if through the Transcentral Highway. The attached pictures show how bad the road already is. With more rains forecast up to the mid-year, definitely we’ll have more serious problems. May we therefore request your good office to permanently repair this very vital highway?”
After reprinting Sir Bobby’s letter to DPWH, we wrote a question “So the question is are DPWH officials waiting for an accident to happen before they act on the letter of Dr. Aboitiz? I hope not!” Well, an accident that took the lives of 21 people have happened so the question is, could that accident have been prevented? Granted that the bus lost its brakes, on flat road, it should not be much of the problem because the bus can crawl to a halt. But on a steep slope like what we have in the Transcentral Highway, this could be disastrous, especially when there are only a few metal barriers in place?
We already pointed out that the Transcentral Highway needs more safety metal barriers (including gabion nets to prevent landslides along the steep areas) and in the more steep and dangerous parts, earth mounds or earthen walls that could stop an 18-wheeler truck from careening off into the cliff. But perhaps what we need from the DPWH and other gov’t agencies like the LTO is to make safety its priority. That is something we hope can change when the new Aquino administration takes over the reins of power.
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Email: vsbobita@mozcom.com