TRO should not give up his role in traffic
There seems to be a word war between Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña and Land Transportation Office (LTO) Regional Director Victor Caindec on two issues. First, Osmeña would like to help those buyers of motorcycles who until now haven’t received their plate numbers. Now this isn’t the fault of Caindec as it really is the problem of the LTO main office. But if Osmeña wants to help, he’d be a great help if the Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO) won’t stop those motorcycles with temporary plates and focus only on traffic violators.
The second issue happened when, because of this word war, Caindec challenged Osmeña to fix the problem around the underpass being constructed by the Department of Public Works and Highways along Natalio Bacalso Avenue to which the angry mayor issued a statement in Facebook that he was giving up handling traffic in that portion of Cebu City and letting Caindec solve the traffic problem there, even giving him assistance with CCTO personnel.
Call it great that our 888 News Forum had Caindec as guest at the Marco Polo Plaza yesterday so it was a chance for him to clarify things that were said between him and the mayor. So I asked the most important question of all; whether this word war was of a political nature? After all, the LTO Director was CITOM chief during the time of former mayor Michael Rama. Caindec’s replay was a flat no! It wasn’t political, but he said it was because of the heavy traffic near where he lives. He wanted the traffic mess there to be resolved but he believes Osmeña didn’t give this problem any importance.
Indeed, the problem stems from the fact that Osmeña doesn’t accept criticism well and whether he likes it or not, people are complaining about the daily traffic congestion happening in that particular area. When I heard that the mayor was giving up solving the traffic mess in that area and giving it to the LTO director to solve, to many of us, it really meant that the mayor was holding up his hands up in surrender.
To be totally honest to the mayor, CCTO is doing a lot more these days by putting traffic enforcers in important intersections, which has solved a lot of our traffic problems. So mayor, I suggest that you don’t give up any corner to anyone because you were elected to solve this problem. Finally, I asked Caindec to guest on my TV talkshow Straight from the Sky, which will be showing this Monday, and he agreed to appear on the show.
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Finally, after all that talk about the Dengvaxia controversy, the National Bureau of Investigation confirmed that graft charges have been filed against former president Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III, former health secretary Janette Garin and former budget secretary Florencio Abad, and 19 current and former health officials found liable in the allegedly anomalous purchase in connection with the Dengvaxia controversy. Hmmm…are these people serious in filing these charges? My question is; isn’t the figure used in the billions of pesos which means that the arrest of the respondents means no bail for them?
Meanwhile, another criminal case was filed yesterday against Garin and 36 other respondents still in connection with the Dengvaxia controversy. This time, the complaint was filed by the family of 11-year-old Michael Tablate of Subic, who died in October after receiving the anti-dengue vaccine. The respondents were charged with reckless imprudence resulting in homicide and violation of the Anti-Torture Act and the Consumer Act. Tablate’s mother, Rowena Villegas, sought the assistance of the Public Attorney’s Office, which was tasked by the DOJ to investigate and build a case on the Dengvaxia controversy.
Mind you, the filing of the graft cases by the NBI is already two years too late. What we want to hear is whether or not the NBI will be allowed to arrest these respondents, after all government funds in the billions was spent on a vaccine of dubious origin. Yet despite warnings, these top government officials still pursued this purchase even close to the end of the term of Aquino. So let’s look closely into the developments of this case.
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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.
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