We did a lot of widening, but people forgot!

For our special presentation on Straight from the Sky tonight, we help advocate Pink October, which is the color for the Breast Cancer Awareness Month. We’ve done this show for many years already in order to advocate early detection as the best way to prevent breast cancer. The problem really stems from the fact that many women, especially the poor sector of society, are scared of the medical expenses even just for a mere check up.

 Thankfully, we have the Eduardo J. Aboitiz Cancer Center (EJACC) of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) that helps indigent women patients with this problem. Their research shows that from 1993 to 2007, RAFI recorded a total of 3,005 reported breast cancer incidence in Metro Cebu over the past 10 years due to so many factors, mostly caused by lifestyle or health related.

 This Wednesday, Oct. 12, a Moonwalk to observe Breast Awareness Month will begin at 5:30pm at the AsiaTown I.T. Park. RAFI calls it a Moonwalk as this is held every October during the full moon. Call it a unique advocacy campaign to promote the importance of observing monthly breast self-examination for women aged 20 and beyond.

 This is why tonight we have with us our guests from EACC Grace Joy Cabuguas and Gina Mariquit, both program officers, and Dr. Saleshie Tracy Baking, a surgeon from the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, to give us a thorough discussion on the problems of breast cancer and more importantly how it can be prevented. So watch this very interesting show on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00pm tonight.

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 Last April 6, I wrote a column supporting the move by the Province of Cebu in creating the Metro Cebu Development Coordination Board, which was signed last April 1. I supported it because this was one of the outputs we gathered during the First Cebu Traffic Summit and a couple of years later when we held the Metro Cebu Traffic Summit on Oct. 22-27, 2001. Indeed it has been 10-years already when we gathered all the stakeholders in Metro Cebu who had anything to do with traffic, including sidewalk vendors, building owners, taxi, jeepney and bus operators.

 I’d like to point out that the people belonging to the anti-flyover group must have known about this traffic summit, as it was well-publicized, but they probably didn’t care as they were all making a living. Surely, my good friend Mr. Joel Lee was still a kid and didn’t care about what happens to Cebu, while my other good friend Atty. Antonio Oposa was just too busy with his own advocacies in Manila.

 But yes, there were many who attended that traffic summit, which led to the widening of Escario St. in 2002 and in fact, we didn’t see the need for a flyover along the busy intersection of Gorordo Ave. and Escario St. because there was another project that we initiated, the parallel road to Escario St. which starts from V. Rama Ave. all the way to Andres Abellana St. then crossing the Guadalupe River and going all the way to Ecotech and crossing into Lahug Creek along the University of the Philippines (UP-Lahug). That project, which is still in the pipeline, would certainly decongest Escario St. and 85% of this road is already existing and all DPWH needs to do is widen it.

 Again, all these were widely publicized but alas, we are all forgetful, people insist that we never had any masterplan. Perhaps this is what the anti-flyover groups were telling the madres of the Asilo dela Milagrosa so they can have them on their side. Perhaps these nuns do not know that these anti-flyover groups only want a road widening, which would mean that if Rep. Cutie dela Mar succumbed to their pressure and agreed to widen the road instead, the nuns might just plead to have the flyover instead because Rep. del Mar has already told them that their wall won’t be touched.

 Anyway, I was asked by former Rep. Raul del Mar to join him and Rep. Cutie to sit down with Arch. Jose Palma at the Archbishop’s Palace last Saturday morning and he sat down with us for an hour and a half. The reason why Rep. Del Mar wanted to meet the Cebu Archbishop was due to the fact the anti-flyover groups already went to him. It just makes you wonder why they wanted to use the Cebu Archbishop for this issue? To clarify our stand, I threw a question to Arch. Palma, “If flyovers are as evil as the anti-flyovers depict it to the public, why aren’t these people, who claim love for Cebu, against the proposed flyovers that would be put up at both ends of the old Mactan Bridge and along Plaridel St. at the Mandaue side of the Fernan Bridge?”

 Meanwhile, an old controversy has been resurrected when Cebu City’s once again banned certain jeepneys from Mandaue to pass certain streets in Cebu City. I would like to believe that this issue would be the first test of unity for the Metro Cebu Development Coordination Board.

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