Night market on Colon St. disrupting businesses

Finally after many long, long, long years of waiting, the Province of Cebu with the nod of Cebu Governor Hilario Davide III approved the controversial Ciudad Project with the Fifth Avenue Development Corporation (FADC) who had a tie-up with a Malaysian investor. Back then Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña blocked this deal, using the traffic congestion in the Banilad-Talamban road as his excuse, which is why this deal fell apart after it was signed in 2006.

To legally block that deal, former Mayor Tomas Osmeña ordered the Cebu City Traffic Operation and Management to come up with studies on the impact of this development in the traffic in the area. When you are the mayor, you can always cough up any reason to block a project like this, using traffic congestion as the excuse.

But then Mayor Osmeña failed to realize that his blocking that project gave Cebu a black mark to foreign investors, especially the Malaysian partner of FADC. Thanks to the Internet and social media networking sites like Facebook, foreign investors instantly know whether they are welcomed to Cebu or not. I heard this talk from many businessmen in Cebu who were afraid to seek out foreign partners to invest in Cebu scared that they would become a political football of our political leaders.

But in the end, I doubt if CITOM ever came up with that traffic study and worse, even if the Ciudad Project was effectively blocked, traffic in the Banilad-Talamban road only worsened, not because of any new developments, but rather because brand new cars are now affordable to the public, it is cheaper to buy a car than ride a taxi in clogged traffic. So we ended up with more cars on the road, which caused more traffic congestion.

Now that Mayor Osmeña is seeking to reclaim the Cebu City mayoralty seat, he ought to rethink (or even apologize to Fifth Avenue) for what he did when he blocked the Ciudad Project, because I would like to believe that what he did was contributory to his political defeat in the last elections. There are lessons to learn from this incident.

Our political leaders ought to know that we Cebuanos are not stupid. We know when a mayor is blocking a project in order to spite his political enemies. How many jobs would have been available for the Cebuano constituents living in the North if the Ciudad Project pushed through?

Furthermore, if the Ciudad Project were allowed to open then, it would have effectively declogged that part of the Banilad Road coming from the Cebu Country Club as you are going to Waterfront Hotel because they would have opened up at least two road openings that would lead to the AsiaTown I.T. Park. As we said so many times before, traffic is similar to water inside the water pipes. Any new opening would ease the pressure in water just the same in traffic.

I just hope that now that the Ciudad Project has been given the go-signal (they now have a new partner in Filinvest Land, Inc. (FLI) to begin its construction, they would still open up these same roads that would afford motorists options to enter or exit the AsiaTown I.T. Park.  Kudos to Gov. Jun Jun Davide as this is one positive thing that he has done for the Province of Cebu, which directly helps the residents of the City of Cebu.

Speaking of a powerful Cebu City Mayor, I just learned that the Colon Night Market suddenly resumed its operations, using the same old excuse dubbed the Downtown Revitalization Project of Mayor Michael Rama. This resumed last September 20th on Sunday and the business establishments in Colon St. were not even given a proper warning, which City Hall used to do. They usually call the people having business establishments in the area in order to prepare them for the night market. But that did not happen this time.

What I got is this report from the Cebu City Government Facebook page and let me get that quote for our readers. "In an interview with the BARUGG News, Cebu City Downtown Revitalization Project President George Chu underscored that the Night Market will have a wider walk-ways to ensure the safety, convenience and smooth flow of the people, adding that there will be at least a hundred of traders that will join in the activity. The operation will start at 6:30 in the evening wherein the Night Market traders are allowed to display and sell various items and products up until 2 o'clock dawn."

First of all, this is the first time that I heard that this so-called downtown revitalization project has a president in the person of George Chu. Come now who elected him to this position? But the bigger issue is that the night market has now affected establishments in this part of Colon St. that they close and they are now complaining to us that their businesses have been disrupted because of this project. Now I'm telling Mayor Rama that the night market is okay during Christmas, but not at this time. I hope he listens to the legitimate businessmen who are now suffering in Colon St.

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