Time for a new leadership in Cebu Province

For our special presentation on our talkshow Straight from the Sky, we bring you a serious discussion on federalism. Actually, it is the last of our senatoriable and party-list series because from here we will now focus on our local candidates for governor, vice governor, board members, city and town mayors, vice mayors, and councilors. But more importantly, we are bringing in the candidates focused on the issue of federalism.

So tonight we bring you Richard Altajora who loves talking about federalism and Mike Pato of IAAAP who wants a faster set up on local autonomy that will eventually bring us to federalism. So watch it on SkyCable’s 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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When I read the news that the House of Representatives approved on second reading a bill that seeks to provide for the construction of a second runway at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, I was super happy that my dream has finally come true. This was the approval of House Bill 149, authored by Cebu City First District Representative Raul del Mar, that seeks for the establishment of the second runway for MCIA with concomitant access taxiways and rapid exit taxiways, runway lighting systems, and navigational/landing equipment. The runway will be under the supervision of the Department of Transportation, through the Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA).

I was a private sector member of the MCIAA board for 20 years and have been batting for a second runway for 15 years already because I believe this is linked to the greater economic growth of Cebu. When finally the GMR-Megawide consortium bagged the Terminal 2 project to run MCIA for 25 years, I was extremely happy that their future plans included a second runway because that is the only way we can have more flights in Mactan. However, allow me to say that approval by second reading is still a long way off. We will only be truly elated when the construction of this runway finally begins!

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Last Friday morning, former governor and current Congresswoman Gwen Garcia and her vice gubernatorial candidate Daphne Salimbangon showed up at the “Klarohay Ta” Mega Cebu candidates’ forum as the first local candidates. The first thing I looked for in Gwen Garcia was her stature, whether she had aged or not, after all, she is already a senior citizen, but on the contrary, she talked and answered all the questions thrown at her as if she was a middle-aged person. That means, we are going to have a governor who can go around Cebu Province with the stamina of a person who is younger than her apparent age.

Gwen really gave us details of the many things that she has done. For instance, I already forgot that Mega Cebu became a reality because she sat down with the late Bobby Aboitiz to make it a reality. She even failed to mention she greatly helped Cebu’s economy when she declared Cebu Province insurgency-free which was great news to many businesses especially in the province. Yes, she even volunteered to talk about the Balili case, which in my book was nothing but political persecution by the Aquino Regime.

Then she took a swipe at the Cebu International Convention Center that we would have become proud of. She constructed it for P740 million and it was damaged by the 2013 earthquake that struck Cebu and Bohol. Governor Hilario Davide III could have fixed it for less, but instead, sold it for P300 million to Mandaue City which, in turn, sold it to a private company. This issue is one of the catastrophic failures of the Davide administration.

Then she mention about the proposed Provincial Resource Center, which is a 20-story building that has no approval from the cultural group in Manila. Worst of all, Governor Davide plans to secure a P1.5 billion loan to construct this facility in Cebu City when he could have constructed it in any city or town in Cebu Province. This only shows you how poor is the vision of the current governor and why change in leadership has to happen in the May 13 polls.