EDITORIAL - At last BRT is on hold for review

Cebuanos can now get a good night’s sleep, even if only temporarily. The Bus Rapid Transit system that Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña was bent on implementing has been put on hold for reevaluation. Most people with a fair sense of pragmatism saw the BRT as a nightmare, ill-suited for Cebu City’s narrow and congested streets. But Osmeña had been dismissive of their misgivings, seeing them as the musings of non-experts, as if expertise is really needed to differentiate right from wrong.

But since Osmeña wanted to hear from the experts, well, he will soon be getting it straight from them. The National Economic and Development Authority, which earlier gave the BRT project the green light, largely on the basis of no other voice but that of the proponents, has decided to put the decision on hold until after a technical service consultant comes up with the crucial and much-needed reevaluation.

Much of the problem with the BRT is that any opposition to the project has almost automatically been mislabeled as political obstructionism. Nobody cared to consider the fact that there could be well-meaning and well-grounded basis to oppose the project beyond what can be conveniently ascribed to politics. It didn’t help, of course, that the main oppositor to the BRT had been Michael Dino, the presidential assistant for the Visayas, who just happens to be a personal enemy of Osmeña.

That Dino and Osmeña are enemies is no secret to Cebuanos. But it does not follow that everything Dino does is meant to undermine Osmeña. For one thing, Dino as presidential assistant for the Visayas has a far wider sphere of influence than Osmeña. For another, he has not expressed an interest in Osmeña’s post. But the most telling aspect in favor of Dino is that, with or without him, public misgivings against the BRT are just as strong and valid than if he had any motives, if at all.

Just because Osmeña sees Dino as a threat does not mean Dino cannot be believed. And unfortunately for the mayor, regardless of what political specters may have hounded him in his sleep, the unassailable truth is that far more people are against the BRT than there are for it. Dino just happens to be one of many opposed to the project. And if it is only Dino that Osmeña sees, then that is his problem, not of the Cebuanos.

That the NEDA has decided to reevaluate the project is a validation of the long-obscured truth that BRT is not the solution to Cebu City’s traffic woes. The NEDA has finally chosen to acknowledge what the public has clamored for. A reevaluation will also give the national government the chance to see if it is wise to push through with a useless project, or scrap it and look for something better and more aptly suited for the situation on the ground.