Safety on our roads is CITOM's responsibility

I read with amazement how people tend to twist issues just to make their case against the flyovers. Yes, I’m referring to the statement of Cebu City Traffic Operations and Management (CITOM) Chief Sylvan “Jack” Jakosalem, who was quoted in the papers saying that “flyovers are unsafe” in reaction to an accident where a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) hit the wall of the flyover. Come now, this was not the first time that someone met an accident on the flyovers, but those previous accidents did not elicit any violent reactions from my good friend Jack Jakosalem when he was still a Councilor.

Of course, Councilor Ritchie Osmeña reacted to Jakosalem’s statement, which was quite a revelation saying “A study conducted showed that 70 percent of road accidents happen after 10:00PM and mostly involve drivers under the influence of liquor, the rest are caused by overspeeding.” I fully agree with this observation. In the four years I was head of CITOM, I always get those accident reports and I would tend to believe that the figure of accidents by drivers driving under the influence is higher.

But I won’t dismiss Jack Jakosalem’s statement about our flyovers being unsafe just like that and ask the poignant question, what has CITOM done to make our roads or those unsafe flyovers safe? As I clearly pointed out, there have been numerous accidents, involving flyovers and many of our center line posts especially along many intersections. So if they are invisible at night, it is CITOM’s responsibility to put those warning signs to warn motorists of a possible danger up ahead, and not the responsibility of the DPWH.

This issue reminds me of the time when Mayor Michael Rama removed the centerline fence that CITOM erected years ago right in front of Country Mall because of an accident, saying that the center line fence posed a danger to motorists. Since Mayor Mike Rama isn’t conversant about traffic issues, he doesn’t know that by removing the center line fence, he has now put to danger the motorists driving on the opposite side of the road because drunk drivers can now overtake at will even though this road is a yellow line, meaning, you are not supposed to overtake the vehicle in front of you.

Again, this issue reminds us of the need for a national law against drunk drivers. In well-developed countries like the US, Japan, Europe and Singapore, there is no first offense when a motorist is caught driving under the influence of liquor. Finally, I would like to see the report about the SUV that hit the flyover… using the figures of Hon. Osmeña, the driver was either drunk (which happens 70% of the time) or perhaps was distracted by a text message, which is why the car hit the flyover. But please, please, don’t say that flyovers are unsafe. These are immovable structures and if you are a motorist from Cebu, chances are you already know that they are there. But then, even if you’re from Cebu and you’ve drank more than you need, chances are you will not see where the flyover is.

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I fully concur with the editorial in The FREEMAN yesterday entitled “Another reason to abolish the SK.” This has been my stand since democracy was returned during the EDSA Revolt that the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) was a political toy for then Presidential daughter Imee Marcos to start her political career. But did it really help develop our youth to be the leaders of tomorrow? Well, 25 years later, thanks to ugly politics, the SK, which is supposed to be as apolitical as the barangay, has become too politicized. It has become a political toy of barangay leaders and their children.

As I’ve written years ago when I interviewed a friend who was in the SK, it was quite discomforting that she was getting a salary bigger than her father, the breadwinner in the family. She admitted to me that financial independence made her turn away from her parents and do whatever she wanted to. This scenario apparently continues to this day. The recent fiasco in Amlan is another proof that the SK is a total failure and we should divert the billions for this program and plow it back to the Boy and Girls Scouts.

Call it a coincidence that we are talking about the SK, which was designed to train or educate new and young leaders. This brings us back to the raging issue of the day, where Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III gave P5 Million to the Bangsamoro Management and Leadership Institute(BLMI) in order to train future leaders. Why didn’t Pres. PNoy give more funds to the SK in ARMM and tell Murad to enroll his future leaders there? If you ask me, this smells more like the Pres. PNoy’s version of former Pres. Joseph “Erap” Estrada’s “Erap Muslim Youth Foundation,” which got Erap a piece of Philippine political history as the first President of this country to be impeached!

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