The Lenten Season is over and it is high time that we rolled our sleeves and get back to work, and I mean this seriously for the Duterte administration because they made too many promises to the Filipino people, but with the same bureaucratic system in place, many infrastructure projects remain unfinished. Lest you have already forgotten, the Year 2022 is fast coming and if we don’t push for reforms under a reform minded Pres. Rodrigo Duterte, we might end up having his “Build, Build, Build, infrastructure project with people clamoring, “Finish, Finish, Finish!”
A case in point is a bridge on the national road in Compostela, north of Cebu, where someone erected a sign that demanded from DPWH to finish the bridge! These are Netizens up in arms demanding that the DPWH finish the bridge appearing in Facebook. In Cebu City, ever since the Aquino regime exited from power, the F. Sotto widening project has stagnated. I have already written about this infrastructure project here… that DPWH could not somehow budge the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) to remove their fence to make way for the widening of the road.
What is worse for Cebuanos is that the DPWH under Regional Director Ador Canlas doesn’t exercise transparency… so we have no way of knowing what really is the timetable for DPWH projects in Cebu City. Then there is that bridge in Oslob town, 118 km from Cebu City that my good friend, InfraWatch’s Rick Ramos warned me about. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to drive to the south, nor has the Regional Development Council (RDC-7) given me any feedback, so I couldn’t give Rick any report.
I’ve been writing about my pet project in Cebu City dubbed “The Parallel Road to Escario St.” which until now has not yet been funded for the 2018 national budget despite the support of the RDC Chairman Kenneth Cobonpue and Infrastructure Chairman Glenn Soco. Yet, the DPWH has no plans or any projects to solve the traffic mess in Escario St.
The big question in Cebu right now is… why is DPWH Regional Director Ador Canlas so “untouchable”? Perhaps the new appointees to the Anti-Corruption Agency in Malacañang, Dante Jimenez, founder of Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption and Atty. Greco Belgica, the person responsible for filing the case against the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) that the Supreme Court declared as “unconstitutional” ought look at why road projects in Cebu do not get finished? I mean, why can’t DPWH Sec. Mark Villar get rid of Director Canlas is something that many Cebuanos would soon demand answers from Pres. Duterte himself the next time he visits Cebu.
* * *
For more than 30 years, I have always believed and supported the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), but unfortunately the political enemies of the Marcos Dictatorship did their best to discredit the BNPP, warning even that the structure was on top of an earthquake fault so as to scare people. But the debate whether we should have a nuclear plant or not was solved with the success of the EDSA People Power Revolution in February 1986.
But while politics ended the nuclear debate, exactly two months after the EDSA revolt a world famous nuclear accident occurred on April 25-26, 1986 known as the Chernobyl nuclear accident when the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant literally blew up and the anti-nuclear advocates went to town telling people… “We told you so!” But in truth, the Russian nuclear technocrats had redundancy problems. But it was the last nail to the coffin of the Philippine nuclear industry.
But the Philippines lost more than the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant; we lost our chance to have a nuclear industry. Mind you, there were many Filipino physicists and nuclear engineers who were trained to run the BNPP. When it was clear that the BNPP was not going to be operated by the Philippine government, these Filipino nuclear technocrats found jobs in nuclear plants all over the world where they are highly paid. What’s painful for the Philippines is that the Westinghouse BNPP had a twin nuclear powered plant in Yongbyon, South Korea, which still runs and gives cheap power to South Korea. To cut this story short, we missed the nuclear train!
This brings me to the question raised by Sen. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito for the Philippine government to reconsider reviving the mothballed BNPP. I started this piece saying that for 30 years, I believed and supported the BNPP. However 30 years of being mothballed is a lifetime and so many things have happened since especially with technology where solar panels are cheaper now and wind farms have become common place, we don’t have any need to revive the BNPP!
* * *
Email: vsbobita@gmail.com.