The Villars love Cebu
There is so much propaganda that the government is propping up the Build! Build! Build! Program with. At the slightest opportunity, top-ranking officials allude to the said program as the supposed generator of economic activities. People will get employed and so they will have money to spend. Production of consumer goods will churn. Support industries will multiply and so forth and so on.
Indeed, with hope springing eternally, we look to all signs of the implementation of this all-too-ambitious program. It is therefore understandable if I sound both hopeful and optimistic upon observing indicators that this program is moving forward.
Let me cite a specific example. I am glad that this government of President Rodrigo Duterte has, through Secretary Mark Villar of the Department of Public Works and Highways, seen the need to repair the road from Barangay Pit-os to Binaliw in Cebu City. Not too ago, the concrete paving running this stretch was damaged beyond levels acceptable to commuters. I knew this fact because every Saturday I go to my small garden plot in Barangay Paril. I observed that hundreds of heavy vehicles carrying loads of eighteen tons (or more) in quarried materials traverse this road seemingly pulverizing the cement. Negotiating through the stretch became perilous to some drivers as it was stressful, to say the least, to most.
Then, out of the blue, this road probably got the attention of the national government. Many, not excluding me, were in askance. When serious work began, I could not imagine any explanation why such earnestness came except that it was meant to be a fulfillment of the new government program. Behold, there was initial pouring of thick asphalt of apparently good quality resulting in as smooth a travel as driving through a gated subdivision. Cebuanos were touched by such attention as only the much-ballyhooed Build! Build! Build! Program of President Duterte can give.
Everybody noticed the smoothness of the asphalt from starting at an area near the Pit-os barangay hall to about a kilometer and a half away.
I explained to them that those were used by many teams working on the concreting of some portions of the otherwise damaged road.
Out of the abundance of good faith, we raised our eyebrows to realize that the asphalting of the started at an area near Camella Homes Miramonte in Barangay Pit-os and wound through a high-end subdivision called Riverdale.
The end portion of the concreting is also near the Golden Haven. Here is what struck our innocent minds. The Secretary of the DPWH is Hon. Mark Villar. Coincidentally, the Villars own the Miramonte Residential Subdivision which was among the first investments of the Villar Family in Cebu City. The high-end subdivision I mentioned above is another Villar-owned business. Then, it is public knowledge that the Golden Haven in Barangay Binaliw is a Villar enterprise.
Why are all these Build! Build! Build! Projects being poured into Cebu City? It must be because the Villars love Cebuanos.
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