Since when did INC care for SAF 44?

The protest rallies done by members of the Iglesia Ni Cristo in the last four days has sort of shifted their demands from just asking the Department of Justice to stop its probe on the alleged kidnapping of INC ministers to demanding justice for the 44 fallen Special Action Force troopers who were massacred in Mamasapano, Maguindanao. Come now, where was the INC hierarchy last January 25, 2015 when the 44 SAF were killed?

When the bodies of the fallen 44 arrived in Villamor Air Base and President PNoy Aquino went instead to a plant inaugural, a great majority of Filipinos was sore at the president for not meeting the bodies of the soldiers that he sent to their deaths. But there was no comment from the INC. Then now all of the sudden they care for the deaths of the SAF 44? At this point, we don't know if the INC rally would finally end or get worse.

Meanwhile, the bosom friend of PNoy, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak also has his hands full with tens of thousands of Malaysians rallying Kuala Lumpur demanding for his ouster, angered by a corruption scandal allegedly a payment of US$700 was made to his bank account from an unnamed foreign donor. While Najib denies this accusations, former Prime Minister Mohammad Mahathir seems to be behind this call for Najib's ouster. The irony of ironies is that those tens of thousands of Malaysian protesters are wearing yellow shirts.

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Despite all the monies that the Aquino regime poured into Metro Manila (thus denying many parts of the Philippines the infrastructure they need), five-years into the Aquino presidency, the Philippines has now earned the unenviable slot as one of the top five worst traffic jams in the world, with Egypt as number one, followed by South Africa, Thailand, Iran and the Philippines. The Japan International Cooperation Agency estimated that the traffic jams of Metro Manila cost the Philippine economy P2.4 billion pesos or US$ 57 million per day! It just makes me wonder if the traffic jams of Metro Cebu are included in this estimates.

JICA also noted that if nothing is done about this problem this figure could balloon to P6 billion ($142 M) per day by the Year 2030. So the big question in everyone's minds is how do you solve the traffic of Metro Manila? Perhaps the problem is denial on the part of imperial Manila that Metro Manila's success is also its folly.

Let me say it loud and clear that Metro Manila is overdeveloped, overpopulated a very poorly-planned metropolis like most urban centers in the Philippines.

While many business groups have come out complaining about the mad traffic in Metro Manila, but these business groups. But they are as much to blame for the overdevelopment of Metro Manila.

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Since last weekend was a long holiday weekend, my friends rode our big bikes for a day-trip to Bantayan Island. We took the long route, riding to the Transcentral Highway, then passing through Balamban, Asturias, Tuburan, Tabuelan and into the Port of Hagnaya, San Remigio. We left our bikes in the port because we were going to the beach in Sta. Fe, which is just a five-minute walk to the Sta. Fe Port.

I had an ulterior motive to ride to the North of Cebu because I wanted to see where the Department of Public Works and Highways spent the P386-million rehabilitation of roads in Northern Cebu. Well, we rode the eastern seaboard of Northern Cebu and in Tabuelan, 25-kilometers from Hagnaya, the DPWH was cementing portions of the roadway that was probably damaged during typhoon Yolanda. The longest stretch was a 150-meter road where half of the road was already concreted.

While surely that was a rehabilitation project, however I don't think that this was the bulk of the P386-million road rehabilitation project for Northern Cebu. Therefore, I plan to make another road trip up north in order to verify what the DPWH told to PNoy. But as far as the P643.73 million Circumferential Road in Lapu-Lapu City, many people in Cebu are still wondering where is that project? Traffic going to the fabulous Shangri-La's Mactan Resort and Spa is just as bad as it was before. Now people are saying that the DPWH must have spent that money elsewhere or worse, some may have stolen this money.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama also complained that Cebu City did not get any major project from the Aquino regime. We already wrote about the concreting of the Sen. Sergio Osmeña Blvd for P290-million, which was an asphalted road in good condition and DPWH asphalted it when no one asked them to do so. So why should we support the Liberal Party?

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