Time to call for another Cebu traffic summit

I’m sure that many of you have heard about the various types of farming which could range from livestock farming, crop farming or yes, organic farming. So when my good friend, Mr. Jimmy Escaño rang me up to introduce Natural Farming… I was a bit perplexed because I thought that is what our farmers have been doing naturally for decades?

So for tonight’s special presentation on Straight from the Sky I decided to introduce into your living rooms… Natural Farming. Apparently, there is a group called Natural Farming and Multi-purpose Cooperative (NATFAMCO) that is into this type of farming and this is why we are introducing them to on our Talkshow because who knows… you guys out there might just take up farming as a hobby…as Natural Farming doesn’t need a huge tract of land.

So to give you all that you may want to know about Natural Farming, we have with us Dr. Shawn and his wife Dr. Jacqueline Espina, Mrs. Dinah Craven and Mr. Eddie Bohol who are Natural Farming practitioners. I was surprise to know that my neighbors Dr. Shawn and Jacqui Espina are into this when they are doctors by profession. But they have stumbled into something great that they want to share with our televiewers. So watch this interesting talk about Natural Farming on SkyCable’s channel 61 at 8:00PM with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and replays on MyTV Channel 30 M-W-F.

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The unexpected bombing of peaceful Cagayan de Oro (CDO) City late Friday evening was again another breaking news that I got from the social networking sites. The first reports said that there were 6 fatalities and 32 people wounded… but later on Saturday afternoon we learned that there were 8 who were killed in the bombing of Candy’s Café at the popular Rosario Arcade, and 48 injured. Of the 8 killed, the Philippine College of Physicians (PCP) revealed that 3 medical doctors were amongst the fatalities.

If there were medical practitioners who were victims of this dastardly bombing, it was because there was a national convention of Lung Disease Specialists at the Grand Caprice Hotel at the Limketkai Center. According to the latest news report… sketches of a suspected bomber have been sent out in the hope that the bomber would be apprehended in a hot pursuit operation.

This early, we don’t know what was the motive of this bombing. We have always known that Cagayan de Oro City was like Cebu a very peaceful city. Despite the peace and order problems happening elsewhere in Mindanao, CDO was sort of spared this problem, which is why CDO is a bustling city. Most terrorist organizations use CDO for their rest and recreation.

Meanwhile CDO Police Chief Senior Superintendent Graciano Mijares has only said that there were suspects… but he is not saying whether they belong to the usual line up of terrorist suspects like the New People’s Army (NPA) or the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) or even the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which was supposed to be getting 75% of the deal for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). It is a huge list and I hope that the police would get into the bottom of this big mess.

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The humongous or monstrous traffic jam that struck the South Road Properties (SRP) last Friday because of the 99th anniversary of the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) another CITOM faux pas… unless of course if the INC hierarchy in Cebu failed to meet with CITOM officials to map our their traffic strategy. I really don’t know why this time CITOM couldn’t hack it when last year, they were able to handle the Thanksgiving for St. Pedro Calungsod without a problem?

Clearly one of the major fixes that new CITOM Chairman Ruben Almendras need to do is to whip up CITOM Officers and Enforcers into a one cohesive team and that includes the members of the Board of CITOM for they are supposed to be the planners for our traffic management. Issues like what happened last Friday at the INC event should never have happened.

At this point, I would like to suggest to Mayor Michael Rama to call for a two-day Traffic Summit in order to delineate his traffic plans for the next three-years so it can be a workable plan. When I took over the reins of CITOM in July 2001, the first thing I did on October that year was call for the 1st Metro Cebu Traffic Summit because most of our traffic problems involves the cities of Mandaue and Talisay. That traffic summit was jointly sponsored by the Cebu Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Inc. (CCCI).

I know that in the Year 2010, Mayor Rama called for a Traffic Summit, but unfortunately we didn’t get the output of that summit. I suggest that under the auspices of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) we should call another Traffic Summit…something that they are talking about in Metro Manila. So let’s move quickly and get this traffic summit moving ASAP!

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