Sydney, Australia: By the time this column comes out, we've already left Sydney and are returning back home. It was a short, but fun and unforgettable visit. Thanks to Alan & Penny Carvajal of Travelways Inc. for hosting this trip to the continent down under and of course to Philippine Airlines. I'm not sure if Australia can be or should be considered part of Asia…but this continent is large enough and close enough to Indonesia to earn this title. But there are a lot of Asians working and living here.
But no doubt Sydney is as cosmopolitan as San Francisco or Tokyo, except that they drive at the wrong side of the road. But their traffic is not as bad as what we have in Cebu or in Metro Manila…although I submit we were never on the road during their rush hour. But I reckon that the Australian Traffic Authorities must still be using the Sydney Coordinated Automatic Traffic Signal system that Cebu City purchased with the help of a grant from the Australian government in the early 90's.
I wanted to ride their monorail system, but it was now on limited routes. What they have now is the Tram system, similar to major cities like San Francisco (which uses the old Tram), Hiroshima, Amsterdam, and Jerusalem. Of course after studying the Tram, all the more that I believe that this is the perfect mass transit system for Metro Cebu. Yes I know that finally the Aquino Regime approved the P10 Billion Bus Rapid Transit, but I fear that this budget might not be enough to complete the BRT because of road-right-of-way acquisition. Without setting back the areas where the BRT stations would be located, the BRT would only worsen our traffic woes instead of solving them.
Of course, we cannot turn our backs on the BRT when finally Pres. Benigno Aquino III, approved it. But there was a SunStar report that I read over my Facebook account, which said that the BRT wasn't going to solve our traffic woes in the long term. Yes I tend to agree with that report. At best the BRT will finally change our mass transport system which is the jeepney which has been with us since World War II ended.
At this point, it is up to the folks in MEGA Cebu to call for a Traffic Summit so we could map out the future of mass transportation in Cebu. Of course, we expect inherent problems like our current centralized form of government, which under the leadership or lack of leadership of Pres. Aquino has only worsened. Our case in point is the issue of forcing all gun holders to go to Camp Crame to register their firearms.
This situation isn't only costly for an average man who wants to protect himself and his family, but it also worsens the already worse traffic in Metro Manila. Just imagine, at least 10 million legitimate firearm holders would have to fly from where they live to go to Camp Crame. This situation is only good for the people who live in Luzon. But for us in the Visayas and Mindanao, it is going to be a costly proposition.
This is the problem that the folks in Metro Manila refuses to admit that the only good solution to their traffic woes is to decongest the nation's capital. But then, the major big name business conglomerates in the country have invested in more condos, shopping malls and what have you in Metro Manila… and in the end, they are helping only worsen the situation.
So if Metro Manila urban planners cannot even solve their own traffic woes, despite their having a Light Rail Transit and Metro Rail Transit, how can we expect these same planners especially at the Department of Transportation and Communications to solve our problems in Metro Cebu? Of course, a major solution is for a change in the system of governance and install a Federal form of government.
Few people do not know enough about what a Federal System of governance can do for us. First of all, getting into a Federal System means we need to think outside the box. First of all, the Bureau of Internal Revenue would now collect taxes not for the Central government, but for the Federal State. This means that the money from the taxes we earn will no longer be remitted to the Central Government. So what monies we can earn, we can also spend!
Perhaps the most important change will hit the Local Government Unit that has been used to get the so-called Internal Revenue Allotment which the Cebu Province and major cities and municipalities. This in my book is the group that will offer a big resistance on our call to Federalism. That's because the IRA doesn't help LGU officials to be creative and efficient. These LGU's merely line up to the central government and get their IRA's without literally working for it. This is why we can't expect to solve all our problems unless we do a lot of sacrifices. On the bright side, all one needs to do is look the success stories of Federalized nations. This alone should be our incentive to change our present system of bad government.