EDITORIAL - Ombuds should open its eyes to M. Velez

Road repair and rehabilitation work undertaken by the national government through private contractors on several national roads in Cebu City, such as the one on M. Velez Street, started sometime before classes in the previous schoolyear ended.

Now classes for the new schoolyear have started, or a good three months or so after, and yet the road repair and rehabilitation work on these national roads, but more particularly on M. Velez Street, is not only not yet finished, it does not appear to get finished very soon.

The entire stretch of M. Velez Street, from the corner of V. Rama Avenue to the Capitol building where it ends is roughly 200 meters and has only four lanes. It is neither the German Autobahn nor the Santa Monica Freeway. It is just good old M. Velez Street.

And yet the national government and its private contractors cannot finish the goddarn road in three months? Why that is criminal inefficiency! That is criminal neglect! Now that the new schoolyear is here and new classes have started, the unfinished road has become the worst bottleneck in the city.

M. Velez Street, at the very least, serves two of the biggest and most heavily populated barangays in Cebu City -- Guadalupe and Labangon. Where it ends at the Capitol, by itself the single biggest attraction of people and vehicles among government destinations, it turns into a narrow two-lane road.

This is a road layout that is already far less than ideal even without further hindrances such as the one created by road repair and rehabilitation work. Road layouts are not weather conditions that keep changing constantly. Once a road layout is what it is, it stays that way for a very long time.

In other words, M. Velez Street and its traffic situation are not big mysteries to the national government and the private contractors. They know exactly what they are dealing with. And if they cannot finish the work in three months, then there is something terribly wrong with the both of them.

If the Office of the Ombudsman is truly up to its job and works for the interest of the public, then it should, on its own, investigate this criminal inefficiency and criminal neglect, especially since it holds office right on M. Velez Street itself!