DPWH, what about the trees beside the Capitol?

Each time I drive by the road beside the Capitol, the one going to Guadalupe and Banawa, I fear for the trees on the left-hand side of the street as you make a left to M. Velez, leading to the Guadalupe Bridge. Road-widening is in progress and they've already cut down the giant balete tree near the bridge (I am still reeling from the heartache it's caused), and I'm afraid the other trees would suffer the same fate.

When I asked the construction workers there, some say the trees will be saved, some say they won't, some say they don't know. I want to know for sure, and the DPWH has to say something about the fate of those trees. One time, I stopped by at midnight with a measuring tape and I actually measured the expanse expropriated from the densely populated area beside the Guadalupe River.  Since the trees are lined almost perfectly symmetrical, they can be saved by setting up "islands" or planter boxes to house them.

So it would be like this: the expanded lane, the trees in planter boxes, and the other existing lanes. I believe it's simple and workable. Of course, I'm no engineer or architect. But I hope we exhaust all means possible to preserve those decades-old trees that not only make the drive to Guadalupe-Banawa more beautiful, but also contribute to mitigating the worsening problem of pollution in Cebu City.

It's hard to believe that even when climate change is generally acknowledged to be the biggest threat to mankind, when the super monster typhoons it has caused have battered and bruised many parts of our archipelago, many of our government instrumentalities still act with ignorance and proceed with outdated programs, policies, and methods of intervention.

I'd like to believe otherwise, but the trees that mysteriously vanished in the north reclamation/port area illustrate this flabbergasting insistence on sticking to a dangerously outmoded status quo by our government. That, plus the fact that we still needed to be up in arms in defense of the century-old acacia and fruit-bearing trees along Naga and Carcar. Should it not be a given already?

I mean, Dios mio, how can our government not see the importance of heritage conservation and environment protection in this age of global warming. Aren't the natural disasters enough? Isn't it hot enough? Do we have to speak up before they can come up with more intelligent and more sustainable solutions to our traffic problems?

Let's put a stop to this "They paved paradise to put up a parking lot" nonsense. Please lang.

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On the junking of the plunder cases against Arroyo:

On Thursday, the Ombudsman junked the plunder case against former president Gloria Macapagal - Arroyo relative to the fertilizer fund scam.  That brings to four the total number of plunder cases against the former president junked by the Ombudsman. Just weeks before, the Ombudsman also cleared Arroyo in the plunder case involving the Skybridge 1 and 2 projects. The plunder cases filed against her in connection to the P72 million capital gains tax allegedly due but not collected in the sale of  the old Iloilo Airport to Megaworld in '07, and the alleged misuse of the P530 million Overseas Workers' Welfare Administration, have both been previously junked as well.

So she is left with three weak cases. There's the supposedly non-bailable electoral sabotage case where presiding Judge Mupas granted her bail due to the fact that the evidence against her is extremely weak (a co-accused in the Maguindanao massacre, perhaps having struck a deal with government to testify against Arroyo in exchange for a lower sentence, says he overheard her say "12-0 ha," referring to the twelve administration candidates for senator in 2007).  The NBN ZTE case where nearly all expert witnesses testify that the National Broadband Network- ZTE contract (which she canceled, by the way) would've been advantageous to government had it pushed through (and, if so, we wouldn't be holding the record of having the slowest internet in Asia!). Even main whistleblower Joey de Venecia has cleared her of any knowledge or involvement in the alleged bribery attempts by the Chinese firm.

And of course, the PCSO plunder case which is the only reason why she is under hospital arrest at the Veterans Hospital. It baffles me that every other named co-conspirator in the alleged crime to commit plunder has been granted bail, save for GMA, considering that she is most irrelevant in the equation in terms of culpability, if any (more on this in a future column).

But this dismissal of the plunder case covering the fertilizer fund scam, to me, is very important. The issue has been leveled against her by her opponents, by LP, since after the 2004 elections. That's a decade long. For ten long years, they've demonized her, vilified her, judged and condemned her for supposedly diverting hundreds of millions of pesos of fertilizer funds to augment her election war chest.

Now, the Ombudsman whose seemingly singular marching order is to prosecute (persecute?) her has found her innocent of what is probably the oldest and most enduring issue against her. In time, the truth will literally set her free.