Tonight is the big night for the Rotary Club of Cebu’s (Mother Club) Gift of Life Concert at the Waterfront Hotel’s Pacific Ballroom. It is a dinner for a cause, where children with congenital heart defects are given a new lease in life and are able to live a full life… thanks to the generous people who are supporting this cause sponsored by the Rotary Club.
Last year 10 children were operated on and were granted a new lease in life through this project. With the expected success of today’s benefit concert, we can expect more poor children to once more benefit from the generosity of many members of Cebu’s society with special mention to the team of doctors who have given their services for free in this very delicate operation. Tickets are still available at the Waterfront in case you want to attend. God bless you all.
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I had no doubt that the report of the Technical Working Group tasked by the Regional Development Council’s Infrastructure Development Committee (RDC-IDC) to look into the issue on the flyovers would not be endorsed by the IDC to the Full Council Meeting this coming Monday. Perhaps the major reason stems from the fact that Cebu City Mayor Mike Rama and currently RDC Chairman got himself too involved in this issue in the hope that he could ram home his influence and stop the project.
I don’t want to go into the merits of this controversy because we already discussed it thoroughly in the IDC Committee and have been presented as a news item. However the bottom line here is that, while the TWG did a comprehensive study (despite the time limitations) on the flyover issue, whether we like it or not, it had to spill over many other aspects of traffic management. If traffic is bad in many areas, it is not only due to our narrow roads, it is also due to the fact that too many motorists stop and park alongside the roads and they get away without being arrested.
Again I point out that without a doubt; a flyover at an intersection unclogs a congested area. That is a fact otherwise we might as well destroy all the other flyovers we now have in Metro Cebu. The other problem is that the groups demanding to widen the roads have not convinced us that this is the solution to our traffic problems because of the reality that when a road is widened, motorists merely park along the roadside with impunity and in the end, we still have a narrow road.
Because the TWG report wasn’t broken down to the detail, it had to be endorsed as a full report, hence during the voting, the majority of the members of the IDC decided not to endorse the report, hence it cannot be elevated to the RDC Full Council. But RDC Chairman Mike Rama insists that he would elevate the issue to the RDC in Tagbilaran this Monday.
Like it or not, the RDC functions mainly through its various committees, as they are the workhorse of the RDC. Never in my 20-plus years in the RDC have I ever seen a project that was not endorsed by the IDC Committee (I used to chair the Infra Committee) that was placed in the agenda of the RDC Full Council to be voted upon. But this is the plan of RDC Chairman Mike Rama as we read in the news reports on this issue.
At this point, let me say that Mayor Mike Rama is a neophyte in RDC matters for he has never attended any RDC meetings in my recollection until he was appointed as RDC chair by Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III. He must “play ball” with the other members of the RDC and show them respect and not ram an issue foreign to most RDC members and make them decide on this controversy. A case in point was the years it took for the Port of Dumaguete City to be implemented because of the intra-politics there. The RDC members merely made the people of Negros Oriental decide on this issue rather than get themselves involve in its political intricacies.
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I was in Manila last Tuesday to attend the launching of Globe Telecom’s “Future-proof Network” which uses the most advanced 4G technologies like HSPA+ and Long Term Evolution (LTE). Henceforth all Globe cellsites would have 3G technologies available where they can be found. 4G technology means faster video downloading, which should be good news to those who are using Smart phones. Soon, dropped calls will be a rarity.
I guess this is Globe’s way of anticipating where the new smart mobile phone technology is headed. By now you must have noticed that most of the cellphones sold in stores are already Internet capable and that means, you can push your email and yes, Facebook on your mobile phone. Globe Telecom CEO Ernest Cu told us that a network upgrade that increases fiber optics by 50% translates to increase in capacity that means our internet capable mobile phones can download applications much faster than before. These improved network systems means instantaneous messaging for mobile users and quick call connections and a high-speed mobile Internet access.
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Email: vsbobita@mozcom.