A part of T. Padilla Extension

When someone visits Cebu City, and he comes through the port area, there is a road called T. Padilla Extension which can present to the visitor, as it does to us, an interesting study to understand how power reposited in the hands of our leaders. A portion of this street, starting from the place near the Tejero barangay hall to the corner of the former MacArthur Avenue, has a largely diminished serviceable lane. It is now narrowed because on the bigger part of the road are structures that were apparently built to house some equipment and materials of a construction outfit and on certain areas, mud, silt and other debris are deposited. I could even see a kind of barracks for work gangs that is fenced with interlinked wires as if it were a private property.

President Rodrigo Duterte issued a directive to clear our roads of obstructions. The legal anchor of this executive order is that roads are part of public domain and are beyond the commerce of man. In layman’s language, they cannot be used for private purposes. The burden to implement this directive fell on the shoulders of local government officials. To put teeth to the presidential fiat, the Department of the Interior and Local Government issued a memorandum alerting local officials who cannot heed the president’s command with possible administrative sanctions.

Massive and honest to goodness road clearing efforts followed the presidential pronouncement. Local leaders mobilized all available and relevant resources to rid the streets of all forms of obstructions. Here in Cebu City, as in the neighboring cities like Mandaue and Lapulapu, principal streets were targeted and given top priority with the promise that secondary and inner roads were to follow. Ambulant and side walk vendors, had to be yanked out of the places where, for decades, they plied their daily livelihood. No amount of pleas could stop the demolition of their makeshift stalls. Those who offered initial resistance had their stands swiftly dismantled and their merchandise forcibly taken away.

Thanks to President Duterte and Mayor Edgardo Labella, our main roads like the former Jones Avenue and Colon Street are now freed of the kind of obstructions that impede the smooth flow of both pedestrians and vehicular traffic. This problem of peddlers occupying huge portions of public roads and sidewalks which for many years hounded previous administrations and our citizenry is, after all, curable. It just required the outlook of the president and the political will of the mayor to solve it.

As it can be likely asked by a visitor who might see that part of T. Padilla Extension (which I mentioned above), we, local residents, then have to raise few questions. Why, for instance, is this street spared from the clean-up operations? This road is among the primary links to and from the north reclamation area as well as the pier. Because it absorbs its share of the huge volume of traffic, it in effect, helps increase the capacity of the other roads leading to the port area. Making it constricted results in an increased grid lock in nearby streets. So what makes this stretch perceptively exempt from the road clearing of the president? Differently said, why have President Duterte and Mayor Labella authorized the usurpation and occupation of this portion of T. Padilla Extension?

Until I get some answers, I just have to defer developing disturbing socio-political perspectives that feed from the scene. [email protected]