Who really delayed the BRT?

Call me stubborn because I've been asking for another Traffic Summit that we Cebuanos ought to conduct in order to find solutions to our traffic problems. This is because in the mid-90s Cebu City held its first Cebu City Traffic Summit where all stakeholders using our roads participated as organizations, like the organization of jeepney drivers and owners, the taxi operators association, even people who make a living in Carbon Market joined the Traffic Summit because at that time, the Cebu City Traffic Operations and Management (CITOM) wanted to hear what the people on the ground had to say. Mind you at that time, traffic in Cebu City was still manageable and most important of all, the participants were eager to be consulted about our traffic problems.

That 1st Cebu City Traffic Summit was followed by the First Metro Cebu Traffic Summit where the greater Metro Cebu Component Cities and the Province of Cebu also participated in that two-day event. While the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) participated in that summit, they later evolved into the MEGA Cebu, where they brought together the government sector to sit down with the private sector. Unfortunately, the output of the Traffic Summit was never given any serious thought by the powers-that-be!

One of the proponents of the Summit was the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) who wanted us to prioritize the output of the two Summits. Alas, there was no follow up from the City of Cebu for various reasons. It just gives you an idea that if only our political leaders listened to the people in a public summit … then we would have been halfway in solving our traffic problems today.

Meanwhile Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña chastised the officials of the Regional Development Council (RDC-7) calling them "bad people" and "incompetent", that they were blocking infrastructure development, which is totally untrue! The RDC officials too said the same thing about Mayor Osmeña who has been Mayor of Cebu City longer than his father and yet, Cebu City is now mired in a serious traffic congestion, which gives you an idea that whatever solutions for traffic he did in the past has not helped the future of Cebu City.

A case in point is the delay of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), a project that was initiated when we first saw the Stairless Bus System in Curitiba, Brazil. This is one project that had too long a gestation period. Worse was the six-year term of then Pres. Benigno "PNoy" Aquino III where Mayor Osmeña did not lift a finger when Pres. Aquino did not give the go-signal for the BRT to be implemented. Here we are, supporting the candidacy of Pres. Aquino and, in return, got nothing from his presidency and, worse, Mayor Osmeña who was too scared to tell the President right on his face that he owed the Cebuanos his presidency.

Well, all this is water under the bridge. But it doesn't help that when Mayor Osmeña won back the mayorship of Cebu City, he didn't care to join MEGA Cebu simply because he believes that only he has the solution to our traffic woes. I fully agree many pundits, especially the netizens who write in social media sites, that for as long as our political leaders refuse to sit down with other officials, like the officials of the RDC, we would never solve our traffic problems.

Perhaps our biggest problem is our current system of governance, where it is the Department of Public Works & Highways (DPWH) that is tasked to come up with programs of work. To be brutally honest about it I envisioned my pet road project, the parallel road to Escario Street in the Year 2000 when I was CITOM chairman. Back then, I proposed this road to the DPWH and the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) but they didn't give this project any priority because there was no traffic back then.

I already asked RDC Chairman Kenneth Cobonpue and RDC Infrastructure Chairman Glenn Soco and they want this project included in the 2018 Infra budget. Mind you, NEDA didn't give this road project any importance and that includes the DPWH and I challenge all of them to come up with solutions to solve the traffic congestion in Escario St. I'll bet you, they would have no choice but adopt this parallel road to Escario St. because there is no other alternative that they could find.

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