More problems to work on

At the outset, let me start the day in a positive note by acknowledging two good things. First. Cebu City, is the venue for the Local Legislators Seminar whose participants are the officials of the different local government units of the province of Southern Leyte. They start today. So, let us roll our red carpet to these ladies and gentlemen from our neighboring island.

Second. The other day, we saw a black Nissan Terrano owned by the city government. This was the same vehicle, assigned to the CITOM, which we earlier wrote about. In our article, we observed that it did not carry the regular plate number. As we saw the vehicle then, it sported the plate CITOM 01. Of course, it was not a plate at all and it violated the law such that we theorized it was used to show the prominence in our society of the officer to whom the vehicle was assigned.

This time, the specialized (my goodness, personalized!) plate was removed and the regular plate was, at last, installed. Let me thank the new CITOM chief, former Councilor Jack Jakosalem, a truly level-headed gentleman, for being sensitive to adverse opinions. Good work, sir. May your tribe, like that of Abou Ben Adhem's, increase.

I have an entirely new set of issues that I hope our new city administration shall take a close look at. In our city, there are many residential subdivisions. Some of them were made even ahead of the presidential decree issued by former Pres. Ferdinand Marcos. My concerns are the roads within the subdivisions and their links to city streets.

There are subdivisions whose roads are narrow. I mean, by modern standards because it seemed to me that when they were constructed, their width served the purpose very well. At that time, they were wide enough for the smaller volume of vehicles then running. Unfortunately, we are stuck with these streets because they cannot be widened anymore.

My first problem is that these subdivision roads have been made even narrower. There are fences that are put up right on the edge of the roads. Some residents have erected structures whose awnings protrude unto the streets already. The worse cases are those where the homeowners themselves have appropriated parts of the road.

By intruding into portions of the streets, they have made the lives of other road users such as drivers and pedestrians, difficult. Our city engineers can visit the situation of an old subdivision (is this the Espina Village?) whose entry is near Bethany church along B. Rodriguez Street, and after they shall have snaked through its streets, they will know what I mean.

There are also subdivisions whose roads, according to original plans, were supposed to connect to the city streets. This is my second problem. These entry points were clearly delineated in the subdivision plans which, I must assume, were presented to and approved by authorities.

For many years however, these proposed road links, or some of them, at least, were not built. The result? Subdivision residents, finding no such exits as were advertised previously by developers, have to make do with the generosity of owners of lands who have not as yet used their own lots. Case in point? A residential subdivision near the on-going development site of Filinvest in Barangay Kasambagan. There are other areas with similar problem.

I feel that my third issue is the worst problem. There were roads that were planned to link the subdivision to the city streets. Necessarily, they were designated as road lots. But, the proposed road links were not built and, for sometime, they were left vacant. Of recent times though, we have seen buildings constructed over them. In effect, these road lots are lost. 

The new administration of His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama must handle these situations. The time to address these concerns is now. These are areas where the administration of the former mayor failed. The new chief executive, who has no known relatives in the real estate business, should be cut out for this kind of work better than his predecessor. All that he has got to do is require his engineers to compare the plans originally submitted by subdivision owners and developers of long ago, with what is on the ground. Where there are discrepancies, these should be corrected.

To make task easier to achieve, the mayor's office should work hand in hand with national government regulatory agencies. To be fair to the developers, the mayor may ask them to set their reasonable time frames to take appropriate measures. But, he has to stick to the time lines or else, he will only make the problems bigger. How about that Mayor?

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