A challenge for DPWH officials
During the 888 News Forum at the Marco Polo Plaza yesterday morning, there were two topics of great interest to me. First was the subject that Rep. Benhur Salimbangon presented to the media regarding plans to put up a freeway or road link from Metro Cebu to Bogo City, which all of you know is only a hundred kilometers away. But using our present road system, thanks to the incompetence of the folks at the Department of Public Works & Highways who obviously do not have any vision for the future of Cebu, driving to Bogo City is at least a two to three-hour proposition.
No matter how DPWH Secretary Rogelio Singson brags to his boss, Pres. PNoy Aquino, that they have plunked P23 billion for Cebu in the last five years, the stark reality is that, all this is but a proposal. In truth DPWH only rehabilitated the national road, destroying perfectly good roads and replacing them with new ones rather than widening the road.
During the MEGA Cebu Convergence conference a week ago, no less than Metro Cebu Development Coordinating Board co-chair Sir Bobby Aboitiz told us that there are many foreign investors who want to establish economic zones in Cebu and this means, they would need a minimum of 300 hectares. Pray tell where can we find this size property within Metro Cebu? For sure if you find one… the price of the land would be atrocious. But certainly we can find this land in northern Cebu. But then a minimum of two hours drive is just too long for this short distance.
Some years ago, after an airport conference in Dubai that then private sector representative Mr. Dondi Joseph and I attended, we decided to drive to nearby Abu-Dhabi, 100 kilometers north of Dubai. Since the car rentals were prohibitive we decided to take the bus and what a modern bus they had… it was very comfortable and it even had a night vision capability which is shown to the passengers during the night. That trip only cost us AED 35 bucks! The trip took us only 40 minutes.
Just imagine Dubai has a world-class international airport and a 100 kilometers or 40 minutes away is Abu Dhabi, which also has its own world class international airport. So if we constructed a 100-kilometer 8-lane freeway from Metro Cebu to Bogo City, this would mean that it would be faster for a motorist to drive to Bogo City than say from Cebu City to the resorts in Mactan Island. This is a challenge for DPWH to look into!
If townships are constructed along the way, I can predict that a great majority of the people now living in Metro Cebu would opt to live in Bogo City where land is cheap and yes, water is abundant. So the challenge to us today, especially to all those politicos seeking a seat in Congress is for them to come up with a work program to make this dream into a reality. Now I haven't lost hope with our DPWH officials. I just hope that they too can see the great economic development that would open up in northern Cebu because someone had the vision to make this dream into a reality.
Actually this issue is one that we should fight against Imperial Manila! Meanwhile our column about the DPWH not sitting down with the Cebu City Traffic Office (CCTO) is one proof that national government agencies don't give a hoot what our traffic authorities are doing. This is why DPWH contractors began painting our roads with road markings that CITOM isn't happy about. What's wrong with coordinating with CITOM?
At this point in the game, I wish Mayor Michael Rama would sit down with DPWH officials and force them to repaint our road markings in what CITOM has always done through the years. Surely this isn't asking too much, after all the salaries of DPWH officials are paid by you and me and the taxes we remit to the national treasury through the BIR.
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The other question that Freeman reporter Greg Rubio has raised before Coast Guard Commodore Enrique Evangelista is the petty corruption plaguing his office. For instance Mr. Rubio read a text that showed that Coast Guard personnel is collecting P100 to P1,000 per truck on board Ro-Ro vessels depending on truck size and all without receipts. For ship owners, their complaint was on the Garbage Management Plan (GMP) were registration is P500.00, stamps are P300.00, dry seal authentication of documents is P100.00 and processing production is P4,050.00 for a total of P5,000.00 but only P500 is shown in the Official Receipt.
I informed Commodore Evangelista that his agency is under the DOTC, which today is being haunted by the "Tanim-Bala" incident. He promised to get into the bottom of this problem, after all, my good friend SunStar reporter and 888 News Forum coordinator Eli Baquero vouch for the integrity of Commodore Evangelista. Actually it was the first time I met the Coast Guard Commodore in Region 7 and I will be watching how he resolves this problem in the days to come. Good luck, sir!
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