A serious talk with FVR. Will he run again?

I bumped into my favorite president Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) at the Cebu Country Club (CCC) last Friday just after he played a round of golf with former DOTC Secretary Sonny Garcia and friends. He told me that he was reviving the old plan of then Cebu governor Emilio “Lito” Osmeña to connect a water pipe between Inabanga, Bohol and Metro Cebu. At least for once, this issue brings back to mind that one of Cebu’s unsolved problems is a serious lack of water resources, though this is only prevalent in the Metro Cebu. Water is abundant anywhere else in the Province.

That proposal was discussed in Cebu more than 12 years ago. This was actually a proposal by US company Brown & Root to link up a floating pipeline straight across the Bohol Strait into Metro Cebu and viola! our water problems are over. But that didn’t happen because of the selfish interests of the politicians that rule Bohol at that time. The capital of Bohol is in Tagbilaran City, which faces Mindanao, while the town of Inabanga faces Cebu.

So the politicians said, “We would only allow this project to happen if the water taken from the Inabanga River would first be piped into Tagbilaran.” That is how this proposal suddenly died. With so much water around the island of Bohol, it would be downright foolhardy for a water pipeline to be linked to Tagbilaran because it’s just too far (I reckon it’s close to a hundred kilometers) and therefore not cost effective. Secondly, who would pay for the pipeline from Inabanga to Tagbilaran? Obviously the Boholanos weren’t prepared to pay for expensive piped water because they can just dig a hole on the ground and find water anywhere.

At the end of the day, Cebu didn’t get its water supply and the people of Inabanga became the biggest loser. Today, the Inabanga River throws away tons of fresh water into the sea because no one cared to find other ways to tap this precious resource. But while the Brown & Root proposal vanished, not many people realize, including FVR, that the Regional Development Council (RDC-7) did come up with a better proposal three years ago. It would not only bring water to Cebu from Bohol, it would also line power lines between the two islands and bring them closer together.

I’m referring to the Cebu-Bohol Interconnection. Land bridges would link the numerous small islands that can be found between Jetafe and Mactan Island. This stretch of shallow sea (except in the areas closer to the Mactan Channel) is less than 40 kilometers long and is a very doable project. It would certainly cost billions of pesos but the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

If we built the Lusaran Dam today, it would cost Cebuanos P20 billion. Granted that this land bridge to Bohol would also cost the same, this project can easily repay itself because of toll fees for the vehicles that would use it and another transmission fees for the power lines and the water main. So if you want to know what is the status of this project, I suggest you go to the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) because the last time I heard about this project was when I heard that a feasibility study has to done before its implementation. Well, I briefed FVR on this project and he agreed that this was feasible.

Another issue that we both agreed to pursue is the shift to a Federal system of government although he preferred a parliamentary, while I’m for a Presidential system. But we both wanted this shift to be concocted through a Constitutional Convention (con-con) rather than a Constituent Assembly (con-ass), hence we shook hands and agreed that if we have to have a con-con, then we should elect the delegates for the con-con together with the 2010 Presidential elections so that any output of the con-con would happen only after the term of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) is over.

Our final topic was on the elections. I read somewhere that FVR said that the next President of the Philippines should be an “Engineer” which sent us scratching our heads. Who are the engineers in the Presidentiable line up? Then FVR said, “The fellow we should chose should be a “Bayani” or a hero!” Opps, did he spit out an overgrown hint that we should have Bayani Fernando as the next President of the Philippines? Was FVR throwing his hat behind Bayani? FVR hasn’t officially endorsed Bayani Fernando. If you closely examine the two words, FVR is an engineer and there is no denying that in EDSA One, he was one of the heroes or “Bayani” in Tagalog. So are we going to see an 80-year-old FVR run again in 2010? Well, it depends if 71-year-old John McCain wins.