One of the things His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael L. Rama mentioned in his recent State of the City Address was his undertaking almost 40 asphalting and concreting projects of city roads. And this is just for the first year of his stewardship!. Whether completed or still undergoing, this accomplishment of Mayor Rama in one year is arguably far better than what the honorable Del Mars, (father, son and now daughter) as our North District representatives, in unbroken succession, might have collectively done in about twenty 24 years.
Sometime in the third quarter last year, I wrote about a dilapidated road stretch from barangay Mabini to Paril. The road condition was very bad as if totally forgotten by government. Negotiating it was extremely difficult even for my usually reliable vintage Volkswagen Beetle. I did not know that the project was, as of my writing the article, on stream. Today, the concreting of this portion of mountain road is almost done and so when the mayor boasted on this achievement in his SOCA, I could not withhold my applause.
Anyway, soon after the SOCA, the honorable vice mayor clarified that the on-going concreting project, was drawn during the time of the past city administration of now honorable Cebu City south district Cong. Tomas R. Osmeña. He was gentleman enough not to say it negatively. But, I surmised that the vice mayor wanted to tell us that these projects of the sitting mayor were set in motion before his administration. So, if he were to say it, we should thank the previous mayor.
Indeed, there were road asphalting projects throughout the city before the incumbency of the present mayor. I remember them vividly. The city mayor then, hoping to mimic the propaganda of the Coalition forces in invading Iraq, called it Operation: Asphalt Storm. He wanted us to acknowledge that such road asphalting efforts were as massive and relentless as that of Gen Schwarzkopf.
Yet, how do we differ the road projects of the present city administration from those of the previous regimes? I have not travelled much to the south district of this city and so my comparison is limited to those I perceived to have been undertaken in the north.
1. In the last 10 years, no road in the mountain barangays had been concreted. The city government neglected to pour a portion of its billion peso revenue to this kind of road paving. Also, no part of the pork barrel from our beloved congressman, reported at seventy million pesos every year, was spent for any cementing of a mountain barangay road. Nothing, I recall. Today, there is this visible public works project from the Pung-ol Sibugay part of the Transcentral highway, to Barangay Sirao and on to Barangay Guba. It runs roughly four kilometers.
The residents of Barangay Cambinocot also appreciate that concrete is being poured to cover kilometers of what used to be slippery and muddy road. I need not mention again the Mabini-Paril concreting which is now nearing completion.
2. Few months ago, thick asphalt was overlaid on the road from Talamban to Pit-os, passing thru barangays San Jose and Bacayan, for those who do not know. This avenue had seen years of neglect. Travel is now smooth over this estimated five kilometer stretch.
Only few days ago, the city government paved the once-jagged Junquera Street, with thick asphalt. If the sight of this senior citizen could be relied upon, I would say that the asphalt is of good quality.
I write about these projects because the timing is strange, politically speaking. This is the difference. In the former administration, asphalting was done in the few weeks leading to election. We would see the mayor and favored administration council bets having photo sessions with the busy workers at construction sites. No wonder, a former barangay captain of Hipodromo, exclaimed how he wished every year to be an election year so that such public works would also be implemented every year.
Having said that, there is no doubt that asphalting then was a political campaign strategy. Conversely, the effort of the present administration is not apparently politically motivated. This is off-timed. Or, at least, the mayor is trying to appear less of a political animal than his predecessor.