What really is the fate of the BRT?

Yes, my friends asked me why I said in my Philippine STAR column yesterday that the “NEDA-ICC canceled the BRT” when the headline news of The FREEMAN blared “NEDA Wants Further Evaluation: BRT verdict put on hold.” All you need to do is read between the lines. The decision by the Investment Coordination Committee of the National Economic and Development Authority was to give the Department of Transportation (DOTr) 10 days to come up with a better solution to the BRT.

Earlier, DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade wrote a letter to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez recommending the cancellation of the BRT due to many problems. We know that a major problem stems from the reality that the BRT in its present concept would reduce our roads to two lanes because the BRT would have exclusive bus lanes.

This is why the Cebu Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Inc. reiterated their support for the BRT for as long as there is a road-widening component because it would mean that even with the presence of the BRT, we would still have the same number of road lanes. But in truth, there is no widening under the present BRT program, hence the ICC directed the Technical Service Consultant to reevaluate the project.

Pundits are saying that the ICC has literally put the BRT in the Intensive Care Unit, but in my book the ICC did not want to immediately cancel the BRT, but asked the body to find out if there are better solutions out there and do it in 10 days. Ten days? That’s too short! The FREEMAN report stated that Mayor Tomas Osmeña wrote in his Facebook page saying, “NEDA did not grant DOTr’s request to cancel the BRT today. Instead, they ordered DOTr to finally get the technical experts that they should have hired years ago.”

Hmmm, now it can be told that the DOTr didn’t hire technical experts years back. Lest you have already forgotten, the Duterte administration is only two years old, so please don’t blame this delay on this administration. So if Mayor Osmeña is telling us that the DOTC during the Aquino regime also did not hire a technical consultant for the BRT, could this be the very reason why the BRT languished in limbo for six years under the Aquino regime?

Meanwhile, I heard that Tugade will be in Cebu over the weekend perhaps to explain his side as to why he wrote Dominguez why he wanted the BRT cancelled. At this point, I will await the arrival of Tugade to listen to what he has to say.

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Supreme Court Chief Justice “on leave” Maria Lourdes Sereno continues to go all over town seeking the sympathy of her listeners. Last Wednesday she was at the Ateneo Law School forum on Judicial Independence in Rockwell, Makati, where she slammed what she said was “selective targeting” against her, amid a quo warranto petition before the SC. But in truth, her supposed failure to submit her complete Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth to the Judicial and Bar Council is one of the main issues that have put her in the hot seat.

Then she tried to spread her guilt with her fellow associate justices saying: “Of my colleagues, I know that several of them, have had their qualifications, their inability to submit documentary requirements, waived, several of them. If the JBC was correct in saying that an attempt to submit requirements, that good faith should be accorded to the 14, including those against me, why am I the only one being singled out?” This is a classic Filipino way of trying to reduce one’s guilt by saying that the others were doing it as well! In short, even if the others were doing it, it doesn’t diminish her guilt.

Sereno also said: “No chief justice has ever undergone what I have undergone and what I am going to undergo --to be examined like a fish in a transparent bowl where every movement was examined and measured against every standard of accountability.” How soon she has forgotten that she took over the post of chief justice from Renato Corona who was removed by her boss, then Pres. PNoy Aquino!

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