Closing Colon St. will kill downtown Cebu!

Our special presentation on our talkshow Straight from the Sky tonight, we bring you a serious discussion on the Communist insurgency, why it has taken so long for the Communist leadership to achieve their objectives in taking over the Philippine government and why it is also taking the Philippine government so long to nip this problem in the bud.

With us to discuss the nagging problem of the Communist insurgency is Pastor "Jun" Alcover chairman of the Alliance for Nationalism and Democracy (ANAD) and Group Commander Lt. Col. Oscar Lasangue of the 3rd CRG, Civil Relations Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). I have always wanted to bring you a show about the evils of Communism; after all, I began my career in journalism as an avowed anti-communist.

However I wanted to bring to your TV screens personalities like Jun Alcover and Col. Lasangue who once belonged to the "movement". Yes, they were once-upon-a-stupid-time fighting for the Communists until they realized the horror and chaos that had come to their individual lives. After going back to the fold, they are now the staunchest anti-communists in Cebu. Watch them tonight on SkyCable's channel 15 at 8:00pm.

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Before anyone gets the wrong idea, decades ago, at the height of Martial Law, then Mayor Florentino Solon came up with the idea of closing the entire stretch of Colon St. because of its tourism potential. My father, the late Atty. Jesus S. Avila was still very much alive and gave Mayor Solon a piece of his mind... and that was the end of that stupid suggestion. Something came out of it, called "Tabo sa Banay" a portion of which still operates beside the burnt-out hulk of the Plaza Fair. How much do the vendors in "Tabo sa Banay" earn? I don't know but it's gotta be next to nothing!

Another remnant of Mayor Solon's ideas are those street vendors along V.Gullas behind the Metro Gaisano, which occupied the entire stretch of this street to the detriment of legitimate businessmen. When Mayor Tomas Osmeña first assumed the mayorship in 1988 (or was it 1987?) he asked me to chair an adhoc committee to remove those street vendors. Mind you, they are street vendors, not sidewalk vendors. After a year of negotiations, and in a last ditch effort, they asked Mayor Osmeña if it was okay with hizzoner that they would occupy only one side. Today, that's exactly the reason why they are still there on one side of the street, illegal as always.

Now back to the issue of closing Colon St. I don't know who brought up this idea, but if they close Colon St. to traffic, that's the end of business in Colon St. plain and simple. With Colon St. closed, that means the City of Cebu would also suffer from loss of revenue. I don't know why our public officials tinker with something that would greatly affect the livelihood of legitimate businesses. All in the name of tourism?

Come now, ask yourself, what's keeping the tourists from going to Colon St.? The traffic? Colon St. is a major artery. Years ago when the City of Cebu made it a one-way street, business there dropped. Now that it's back to two-way, it is only starting to revive. Now they want it closed? Closing Colon St. would be the last nail banged into its coffin!

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Last week, I checked my wallet and discovered to my consternation that my driver's license had already expired this year. In the past, this wasn't a problem for the simple reason that you had to renew your driver's license every year. But since the Land Transportation Office (LTO) effected a three-year renewal program, chances are good that you'd miss renewing your driver's license. Since I renewed my driver's license at the LTO Regional office three years ago, I asked Alita Pulga, Chief of the Registration Division of the LTO in Region 7 on how to go about this, especially that I heard that the LTO already has a facility in SM.

Ms. Pulga merely directed me to go to the LTO in SM and that's exactly what I did last Thursday around 11:15AM. I was given a form to fill up, mostly for the urine test that I had to take like the rest of the applicants there. Before noon I got my urine test and my license renewed without waiting weeks or months for the plastic license, which used to be the norm in the past... something you thought would be permanent.

This only goes to show that if our government officials exert a little effort to make things better, things can be better. All you need is a little guts to change things! I personally encountered this last Thursday with the LTO, which used to be one of the most problematic government agencies in the past. I'm glad to be able to see and experience this change for the better.

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