The Cebu-Bohol bridge to be a reality?

For our special presentation on our talkshow Straight from the Sky we bring you the 50th or golden anniversary of Zonta 1 that is celebrating their anniversary on November 8. Zonta 1 is an organization that has helped a lot of poor people. These days their focus is helping out teenage pregnancy. When your teenage girl gets pregnant the whole family is affected. Hence they are women truly in need of support, financial, spiritual, and emotional. So on November 29, Zonta 1 will hold its golden celebration at 6:30 p.m. at the Cebu Country Club.

For this anniversary we bring you Zonta 1 President Minnie Yuvienco, with past president Tess Chan, and director and past president Mathea Baguia. It is just but right that Yuvienco is the president now because after all the first president of Zonta 1 was her mother Dr. Suga Sotto Yuvienco. My own mother was also a past president of this organization. Zonta 1 also created Zonta 2 where my wife Jessica was once president.

So please watch this episode tonight on SkyCable’s channel 53 at 8 p.m. with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9 p.m. Monday and at 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday.

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We just spent four days on a staycation because of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, and yesterday morning I brought my son to the airport from the house and it only took us 30 minutes to get to Mactan and 25 minutes to return home to Capitol Hills, which made me nostalgic for the old Cebu. I’m sure the bad traffic we’ve gotten used to will be back after everyone returns from vacation. But one thing I noticed is that bad traffic is the fault of bad drivers who put on their emergency lights and park where no parking allowed. What pains me is that these drivers do not get apprehended for illegal parking. I hope next year this practice will no longer be a problem!

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I read a headline that read: “Gov’t to build 8 bridges connecting Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.” The article further read: “The government will build eight bridges connecting the Visayas to Luzon and Mindanao to facilitate faster movement of people and goods across the archipelago, the Department of Finance said Thursday. Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said these eight bridges estimated to cost a total of P269.19 billion would also be complemented by the rollout of road networks aimed at transforming the Visayan Islands into growth corridors.

“Up for approval of the National Economic and Development Authority’s Investment Coordination Committee (Neda-ICC) are the following projects: 18.2-kilometer bridge connecting Luzon and Samar islands; 20-km bridge connecting Leyte and Mindanao islands either through a long-span overhead or an underwater tunnel; 12.3-km bridge connecting Negros and Guimaras islands; and 5.7-km bridge connecting Panay and Guimaras islands.

“The Neda-ICC is also set to approve the 24.5-km Cebu-Bohol link bridge; 5.5-km Cebu-Negros link bridge; 18-km bridge connecting Leyte and Lapinig Island; and one-km bridge connecting Bohol and Lapinig Island. “These bridges will provide growth corridors and ensure that none of the major islands of the Visayas will be left behind in the country’s race to progress,” Dominguez said in a speech read by Finance Undersecretary Bayani H. Agabin during the Philippine Economic Briefing in Cebu City.”

For us, my infrastructure committee in the Regional Development Council conceptualized the 24.5-kilometer Cebu-Bohol link bridge in 1998. Now hopefully it becomes a reality in our time to make Cebu and Bohol grow economically. But when will this happen? I really don’t know!

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Last Tuesday Mother Lily called up that she was in Cebu but didn’t ask me to fetch her in the airport because apparently Annabelle Rama did that for her. She was here because she was supposed to meet with President Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte. Later in the afternoon, I was in Mandani Bay with 700-plus politicians from the major political parties in Cebu. But no Mother Lily and no president after five hours of waiting for them. It turned put she was in Adnama while I was in Mandani. So I left without meeting the president and met Mother Lily at the Halloween party of the Cebu Country Club the next day!

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