Tested theories in an old ordinance
There is an old ordinance that attempted to lay down a few basic principles to help address the traffic problem of our city. As far as I know, it has not been repealed yet and so it is, as the lawyers call it, effective and valid to date such that I shall refer to it, where I can, in the present tense. More specifically, this ordinance, entitled the Revised Road Ordinance of 1992, focuses on infrastructure. It was passed in 1992 yet, a little more than twenty years ago. The honorable Cebu City Mayor Michael L. Rama was not yet an elected government official then and that should probably explain why he is less keen on implementing it assuming, of course, that he is aware of its existence.
The common theoretical approaches written into that local law are: (a) straighten the roads; (b) widen the roads and (c) build new roads.
Our city, to be sure, lacked forward planning. Growing out of necessity and expanding from the continuous inward flow of migrants, it did not benefit from a conscientious desire to plan its growth and anticipate its future. This is presently evident in the way our roads were built. Historically, our streets were constructed where the landholdings of the city’s powerfully connected families were located. It may not be totally absurd to imagine that our roads were made to favor the high strung and elite in our society. To prove this point, we only had to inquire who the owners of most lots situated along the road. Prominent names are the registered owners of these assets or if there are now recorded as possessions of new owners, these properties were acquired from fancied families of yore.
Let us take Sikatuna Street as an example. It starts at D. Jakosalem Street, in Barangay Cogon-Ramos, and winds its way towards corner España Street in Barangay Parian. If someone argues that it is a straight road, his eyes must be suffering from a serious defect. The crooked well, curved, characteristic of this example of a street does not augur well to good traffic flow. To smoothen our traffic, this ordinance mandates that this curved street, along with the others, be straightened.
When I first landed in Cebu to enroll in my third high school year, the tartanillas still roamed Colon Street. These horse drawn carts are no longer allowed to run there, but the road, I mean its width, has remained as it was. Colon, at that time, was perceived a wide road compared to Sanciangco, a parallel street. These two roads are examples of narrow streets. Gen. Echavez and Junquera streets, being far narrower, are worse. They cannot anymore accommodate the present volume of traffic such that the obvious remedy is to widen where these narrow roads are.
The late Cebu City Mayor Ronald Duterte, working hand in hand with then provincial Gov. Eduardo R. Gullas, planned some new roads in a program whose title I cannot now fully recall. Was it IBRD? Anyway, when the now Imus Road was punched across Barangays Day-as, T. Padilla and Lorega San Miguel, at the onset of the administration of then Mayor Tomas R. Osmeña, it relieved us of traffic gridlock.
Such a Duterte-Gullas, and later Osmeña, infrastructure project therefore showed the validity of the third theory in the 1992 ordinance. Unless it can prevent new vehicles from plying our streets, which is an impossibility, the city urgently needs to build new roads. It does not require knowledge in rocket technology to know that if, for instance, a new road is constructed from Gorordo Avenue, in the area of the QC Pavillion, towards Osmeña Boulevard, we shall unclog the humongous traffic of both Mango Avenue and Escario Street.
I speak of this old ordinance at this late stage of the mayor’s administration, in the hope that in the coming 2013 elections, the mayor shall include it among his programs of government. I know that he seems helpless with the city council blocking his every developmental move but if commits to implement, to the hilt, the revised road ordinance of two decades, he cannot go wrong. He knows that the theories written in that local law are tested approaches of progress.
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