Traffic rerouting: A case of check and balance!

Birthday greetings to our publisher Juanito Jabat whose birthday coincides with my mother-in-law Pay Rosello and my brother Johnny Avila. My apologies to our readers if I didn't have a column yesterday. I was quite sick, too sick even to write a column. In the past, even if I am sick, I could still make articles with my laptop in bed. This just tells you that we're not getting any younger.

Anyway, when you're in bed, the only thing to do is watch television and yes, ANC had a full coverage of the Congressional investigation into what they call the "Gloria-gate" and while Deputy Speaker Raul del Mar was speaking, did I hear Rep. Clavel Asas-Martinez make a curt remark, "I campaigned for GMA… and I wondered if I did it right?"

What did she mean by that? Is she hiding something that we the public ought to know? Why has it taken her a year to reveal this? Now Clavel says that she too has her own tape? What's wrong with these people? Don't they know that it is a crime to tap on someone's phone without his or her permission? Rep. Raul del Mar was right when he said, "The person who taped this must appear before the House Committees, the tape's authentication and origin have to be verified". Rep. Martinez better have her back covered; otherwise, she too would be in for the Anti-Wiretapping Act.

There is a lot of speculation that Rep. Martinez did something that she's only now regretting. Did she perhaps openly cheat for Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) because she was ordered by the President to do so? If that's what's inside her tape, wow, this should be quite damaging to the President. But then if she admits to this, then she is the classic example of a politician who admits to cheating, and yet lost their electoral bid. For what it's worth, her admission is limited only to her district and should in no way greatly affect the huge vote margin the President had in Cebu.

If indeed Rep. Martinez has been struck by a conscience problem, then it must be said that she did not only cheat for Pres. Arroyo, she also cheated for her husband Junnie Martinez when he ran for governor. And it doesn't end there; she too must have cheated in the last Congressional elections where she also won a great majority. Let's see how far into the truth Rep. Clavel Martinez is prepared to blurt out.

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Kudos to the Cebu City Council headed by Vice-Mayor Michael Rama and special mention to Hon. Sylvan "Jak 'd Wak" Jakosalem (for coming up with that unexpected privilege speech) for restoring our faith in our democratic system when they ordered the Cebu City Traffic Operations and Management (Citom) to restore traffic to the old flow, after the experimental rerouting period showed that indeed, traffic was just as bad or worse especially in areas away from the Redemptorist Church. Just imagine if Citom had its way, we would have this not-so-well-thought-of scheme made permanent. A check and balance is what democracy is all about!

Again, let me reiterate that in trying to solve traffic congestion, one must ensure that the solution must result in the alleviation of traffic in all the corners leading to and from the area being solved. Sure, as Councilor Daluz believed, the scheme decongested the church area but that's not enough for us because the rest of Mango Ave. and Juana Osmeña apparently became more congested than previously thought of. So in the end, the old traffic flow was still better, though far from perfect as we're still experiencing traffic there. That means Citom's work is still cut out for them to improve it.

Hopefully by next Wednesday, traffic will revert back to the old flow. Meanwhile, Citom will have to do what they forgot to do when they started with this experiment… inform the motoring public that they are restoring the traffic flow to the old route. Indeed, all's well that end's well!

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I got out of bed yesterday afternoon and huffed belatedly right to the 1st International Conference and Exhibition on Business and ICT 2005 at the Waterfront Hotel. Let me just say that I was amazed that ICT in Cebu have moved by leaps and bounds, major IT players are displaying their products in this conference. Cebu is indeed poised to become a major player in the IT industry.

But IT equipment is useless unless we develop the skills for children to accept IT as part of their lives. All this starts with teachers who will embrace IT! Actually, we do not have a shortage of kids who want to partake in the IT industry. Just look at all the kids playing the Video Karera… to my mind, what the IT industry ought to do is shift Video Karera into something more useful… and there's the seed for a bright IT future for our children! That's making something negative into something positive!

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila's columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com