Have a safe Christmas

CEBU, Philippines - It is the season for celebrations and of good cheer.

Don’t ruin it by drinking too much and losing control of your senses most especially when you are on the wheel.

The year 2011 is just a little over a week away, it would be nice to greet the New Year in one piece and in good spirits and not under the influence of too many spirits.

If you are going to a party, appoint a designated driver, who shall not be made to take alcohol.  This sounds like treating you like children, but we don’t want to lose our readers to avoidable mistakes.

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With a few more days of shopping left, unless you have run out of cash or credit line, the areas around the malls remain choke points these days.

Another place that is very notorious of traffic is Salinas Drive up to corner Arch Reyes Ave.

What angers many is that there are rarely traffic enforcers in this area and usually the ones making sense out of what’s happening on the road are the security guards of the IT Park.

A reader asked us if CITOM Chairman Jack Jakosalem passes the place and we said we’re quite sure as last weekend we saw him at the bazaar.

Another area that’s notorious for traffic congestion is that in front of a mall in barangay Apas, although many refer to the place as Banilad.

Coming from Talamban, traffic crawls starting from the overpass up to the portion of this mall where the north-bound vehicles make a left turn.

A reader wrote to us last week about this problem and has offered suggestions.  This place is frequented by many traffic officials and we hope that they start pretending not to be blind, deaf, and dumb and do something about the problem.

Yeah, wider roads would help, but only for some time.  Try screening the drivers and removing the dilapidated vehicles from the road if you want to start doing something.

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A reader complained to us last Friday about the situation in the Cebu South Bus Terminal.

She asked us if we know who is managing the facility as she seems to have a litany of complaints.

We had to tell her honestly that we don’t know and we have never even set foot in the terminal for many years now.

She said that it seems that the terminal management is very interested in trying out so many things, which often doesn’t help the plight of the commuters.

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We hope that despite the transfer of Director Benjie Go of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) to another region, his replacement Dir. Ahmed Cuizon would continue the good things that have been done in the body.

Go worked to cleanse the LTFRB, which was something laudable, but hit a snag as he clashed head on with some powers in and around the agency.

Good luck to the new director and we will keep an eye on what’s happening at LTFRB-7.

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For your comments, complaints, and suggestions please feel free to contact us at 2531276 or 2538613 local 237.

You can also send email to [email protected]. (THE FREEMAN)