Can the mayor clear C. Mina Street?

Among the items that warmed our hearts when President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his State of the Nation address last July, was his directive to local government units to clear our roads of impediments. While the president’s objective to reclaim these public infrastructure from illegal usurpers purportedly to help ease traffic congestion was salutary, some of us, not excluding me, thought of his commitment to put an end to the illegal drug trade within three from his assumption of the office of the presidency. So convincing was the president’s pronouncement in that SONA that we could only applaud him for also waging an apparent war against those who have chosen to appropriate portions of our roads. After all, for so many years our roads have been taken over by vendors, squatters and the like for private purposes and to the prejudice of the public.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government followed the presidential directive with Memorandum Circular 2019-121. Of its own, the DILG gave the LGUs 60 days to rid the roads of illegal structures and construction and accomplish President Duterte’s marching order, so to speak. Indeed, here in Cebu City, Mayor Edgardo Labella, as a loyal supporter of the president, made his move. Some, not all, of our city streets mainly in the so-called Central Business District, took a refreshingly brand new look. The mayor caused the removal of privately owned sidewalk stalls. It was a welcome sight. For once, pedestrians were not anymore driven out of the sidewalks and forced to trek on the streets.

 In a conversation I subsequently had with a fellow senior citizen, who is not aligned with the political persuasion of the mayor, I had to assure him that what Mayor Labella did was more than just “show.” My position, borne by the mayor’s perceived personality, was simple. The mayor’s order, though made in his familiar low-key, (and sans Manila Mayor Isko’s dramatics) had all elements of resoluteness written all over. The intent to do his share of road clearing was unmistakably manifest. Admittedly, Mayor Labella might have disappointed the very street vendors who despised his May 2019 political adversary but the more numerous pedestrians jubilated.

Still, the fellow oldie I talked with remained unconvinced. The facts attending the Cebu City road clearing that I enumerated to him seemed lightweight and insignificant as far he was concerned. My persuasion failed. But, in the end, I had just to accept that he being unaligned with the mayor always had negative vibrations until the time he posed a challenge.

What kind of road clearing that senior citizen would want to Mayor Labella to demonstrate? Near the ancestral home of our mayor, there is a street called C. Mina. On its one end, the Barangay Mabolo Sports Complex stands. Beside the gymnasium is the barangay fire department cum emergency rescue office. From that end, we follow C. Mina westward and we reach the corner of M. J. Cuenco Ave where we find the barangay hall. I am familiar with this road because I have a very small piece of land in front of the gym. It is both dangerous and difficult to drive thru this street. Both sides are utilized by private persons for their own private benefits such that it has shrunk to about half its true width. For instance, a junk dump truck and another unserviceable vehicle have made one side as their resting place. There are other structures on the road functioning as food shops, extension houses, store room and others.

I believe that in the mind of my oldie friend only when Mayor Labella can clear this C. Mina Street of all illegal structures will he have demonstrated his resolve to heed the president’s directive.