Politicos should solve our traffic problems

For our special presentation on our talkshow Straight from the Sky we bring you a serious talk about the war on drugs that the Duterte administration has committed itself to since he came into power.

Yes, we haven’t given our time to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Region 7 simply because most of its officials are simply too busy. But since we have a new regional director for Region 7 in the person of Wardley M. Getalla, we are available to have him on this show with information officer Leia A. Alcantara.

What I learned recently is that most Filipinos believe that the war on drugs means there will be less drugs in the market thanks to the continued drive by the Duterte administration.

So watch this very important presentation tonight on channel 53 at 8 p.m. with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9 p.m. Monday and at 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday.

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Last Friday at 5 p.m., traffic was snarled along Osmeña Boulevard from Fuente Osmeña and I had to detour to the parallel road by Chong Hua Hospital, which was equally congested.

From Chong Hua, it took me 45 minutes to reach the corner of the Capitol and Osmeña Boulevard only to find out that the major cause of the traffic congestion was an accident involving a vehicle owned by Cebu City and other vehicles at the corner of Escario Street. After that area, even on a Friday, traffic was lighter than usual.

Last Wednesday, traffic along Gorordo Avenue was super congested from JY Square all the way to Escario Street because of an accident between a jeepney and a motorcycle. We thought we solved this problem years ago, when we allowed the Cebu City Traffic Operations Management to solve accidents with dispatch. What I saw last Wednesday and Friday were city traffic personnel at the accident site waiting for the Traffic Police to arrive.

We already know that this problem started when Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña had an argument police chief Royina Garma and on September 18, 2018, Dexter Banlasang Basirgo wrote Francisco “Isko” Ouano, chief of operations of the Cebu City Transportation Office, that henceforth it is the Traffic Police that would handle all traffic accidents while traffic enforcers shall handle the traffic flow. And because of this issue, traffic has gone from bad to worse!

I had an accident some months back very close to the F. Ramos market headquarters of CCTO, but CCTO officials almost immediately came to my help, but were apologetic that they could no longer handle the problems of the past and we had to wait for the Traffic Police. At this point, I would like to ask Garma to help solve this problem because the present situation has not really solved our traffic congestion.

Last year, the report from JICA revealed that bad traffic in the Philippines cost P4.5 billion per day. So maybe in Cebu we should be spending close to a billion per day in bad traffic. Just think, that accident in Escario Street between a jeepney and a motorcycle cost Cebuano motorists more than just fuel costs. Think further, that accident for sure did not disturb the jeepney except that the driver lost money when his passengers had to disembark while waiting for the Traffic Police to arrive. If you really looked at the cost of this accident, I’d reckon that it cost less than P20,000 to settle everything. But everyone already paid for lost time and fuel.

With 2019 being an election year, I dare all those running for public office to come up with solutions to our present unsolvable traffic problem. We would be asking all political parties from different political landscapes how they will solve this problem and the group that presents a solvable, credible, and doable solution would get our votes. Mind you my latest personal surveys for Cebu City isn’t advantageous to any political parties, meaning that the Cebuano voters are waiting for someone to come up with ways to solve the problems of Cebu City and they will be voting the people belonging to that party. So, you guys who are running for a political position better starting thinking.

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