What do we want Cebu to be years from now?

Call it a great blessing that Straight from the Sky was granted an exclusive interview at the Casino Español with a man of vision, former mayor Enrique Peñalosa of Bogotá, Colombia. He was the special guest of the City of Cebu so he could enlighten us on what he did during his short term as mayor of that Latin American city. We timed this interview during the meeting with Mayor Peñalosa and the Cebu business leaders and stakeholders. We are showing it on our show in order for the rest of the Cebuano public to hear what he did in Bogotá and what he is suggesting that we do for Cebu. Watch this very interesting interview tonight on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00pm, with replays on Wednesday and Saturday, same time.

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We’ve already written much about our talk with former Mayor of Bogotá, Mayor Enrique Peñalosa. But there was something that we discussed off camera that I found intriguing. When I asked him how big is the City of Bogotá, he said that they had some 8 million inhabitants. I asked him again, if Metro Bogotá was as big as Metro Manila or Metro Cebu. He replied that there was no Metro Bogotá. This is true. There are no other cities around Bogotá. This is the same with Bangkok, Jakarta, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and the other major capitals of the world.

In the Philippines, when you say that you are in the nation’s capital, that should mean Quezon City! But most of us say that we’re in Manila when in fact we are really in Makati. The same thing is true in Metro Cebu. We say we’re in Cebu City, but we’re actually in Mandaue or in Lapu-Lapu City. I reckon this is due to too much politics in this country!

Today, the Philippines has some 79 provinces, most of them poor provinces (Cebu is the richest and the only debt-free province) due to the fact that our politicians want to create their own provinces and eventually cities so they can rule over them as if they were family heirlooms. A case in point is the Province of Siquijor, which used to be a sub-province of Negros Oriental. Then suddenly, they became a province on their own, with their own governor and a lone Congressional district ruled by the Fua family. You can also say that the same thing is true with the island of Camiguin.

China which is one of the largest and most populous countries in the world only has 26 provinces. Blame it on their Communist government. But they are progressing faster due to less political interference from their politburo. But not in the Philippines, where most of our politicians rule until the patriarch dies and his siblings hold on to power as if it were a birthright.

So, should we go on the same path we’ve had since time immemorial or seek changes that would give better governance for this country? Nothing much has happened in this country since the EDSA Revolt 22 years ago. In truth, nothing much has really changed in this country since the Americans gave us our independence in July 4, 1946. At that time, we were second only to Japan. Look at us today, we are second to last!

This is why I’ve been advocating charter changes with the delegates for the Constitutional Convention (concon) to be elected in the 2010 Presidential elections. What we need to do is depoliticize this country so that we can push towards a better future for our people. Last week, America voted for a man who can usher new changes. What about us in the Philippines? Can we also make the changes that would make our society better than we are today?

Last Monday and Tuesday former Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, the creator of the TransMillenio BRT was in Cebu to sell this idea of changing the landscape of our cities through generous pedestrian pathways or sidewalks, bicycle lanes and public parks and a new mass transit system that would replace the venerable jeepney. I’d like to emphasize that the jeepney as a mass transit system was a perfect replacement for the tartanilla (in short, it was a better idea than the horse-drawn carriage) when the population of Cebu City at that time was less than 300,000 people. Today the idea of a Jeepney is considered passé.

But what I like in Mayor Peñalosa is that, he is not forcing us Cebuanos to embrace his idea of having the TransMillenio Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. Rather he first wants us to ask ourselves, what kind of city do we want to live in? So the future is really in our hands, how Cebu should grow in the next five to ten years. It is time to ponder on this seriously.