The trouble with traffic operations today

I’d like to announce the passing to eternal life of two good friends. On Monday, a dear friend, Ms. Suzie Jo, daughter of Mr. Leon Jo and sister of Michael Jo of Vistarama Theater, died of heart failure. I didn’t know she was in dialysis. The next day, my archery friend and champion, Mr. Romeo “Romy” Ramirez, died of cancer. Romy and I were competitors and founded the Cebu Archery Club 40 years ago. It’s devastating to lose two good friends one after the other. May we request the pious reader to please pray for the repose of their souls.

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There is no question that things used to be better in Cebu when Mayor Tomas Osmeña was on top of the city’s affairs. How things have changed for the worse. A case in point: Yesterday afternoon, I was passing through Ramos Street when my car was hit by a green armored car of a bank as it was backing to park in front of its office. I thought that the Ramos supermarket was just a five-minute walk away. Until I was told that the Cebu City Traffic Office (CCTO; previously CITOM) no longer comes to the aid of motorists. It is now handled by the traffic police upon the orders of Senior Superintendent Royina Garma.

Accordingly, Police Senior Inspector Dexter Balansag Basirgo, OIC of the Traffic Group in Cebu City, wrote a letter to CCTO operations chief Francisco “Isko” Ouano. The letter reportedly stated that “all traffic accidents/incidents shall be investigated by the traffic police investigators of the Traffic Group from concerned police stations.” That letter took away from CCTO or CITOM the more than 20 years of service to Cebu City constituents. So while the Ramos Police Station was very close to my accident site, I had to wait for the traffic police to arrive.

Since I called, CCTO/CITOM enforcers went to help me, but apologized since they could no longer be of help. Then the traffic police arrived and introduced himself as PO1 Limalima, who once worked under CITOM. His advice was for me to go to Abellana Police Station. There, the biggest problem was parking! Where do cars that get involved in traffic accidents park in that highly-congested place?

I have no doubt that when the traffic investigation was transferred here, no one thought of the grave inconvenience of not being able to have a proper parking space.  Mind you, SPO1 Clint Almencion was not only polite but lectured the driver of the armored car when maneuvering the streets to park their vehicle. SPO1 Almenion’s other problem was that he was saddled with so much work and his working area was not even air-conditioned. So giving them a better workplace, complete with parking facilities, would help our motorists a lot.

This brings us to the issue on why this has happened to Cebu City when things were already working for drivers. At this point, I have only one suspicion -- that Garma did this in order to spite Osmeña. Obviously she was unaware that what Cebu City has been doing in traffic management for the last 40 years was a product of a management discourse. Call it a hit or miss, but eventually we got things to work as they should for the convenience of all motorists.

This is the whole trouble with Osmeña not accepting new officers in the police forces because they do not have direct control over the police. I don’t mind if our mayor had a verbal turf with police officers but the moment their quarrel becomes public, and affects already the good things that Cebu City has been doing, then it is high time for a new political leadership that can help the constituents.

Yesterday, that incident took more than three hours to resolve. If it was done by CCTO, it should have been done in two hours. I hope that the Cebu City officials do something about this problem because when vehicles collide and have to go to the police, parking is something that should never be a problem for motorists. It’s bad enough for us to suffer through a bad traffic; it gets worse when the city cannot help motorists get parking to resolve their parking dispute.

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