As the old saying goes, "Before things get any better, it is going to get worse." This quotation is apparently getting to be true as far as the Aquino Regime is concerned. It's been more than 40 days since the nation mourned the senseless deaths of the 44 elite Special Action Force troopers and the nation has not moved forward. Look at the headlines of the national dailies and its main stories are about the Mamasapano incident or the Bangsamoro Basic Law. Why is this so? First of all, it is because Pres. Benigno Aquino III refuses to apologize for sending those troopers to their deaths, because he didn't send for reinforcements.
This is something that the Filipino people already know… and yet, the spin masters of Malacañang continue to call on their political allies in both houses of the Legislative Branch, the Senate and Congress to stop pushing for an investigation on this debacle… and end up clearing the President from responsibility.
Worse of all, even Department of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima came up with a stupid ruling which said that there was no command responsibility that can be pinned on the President. This was one of the biggest lies poised on the Filipino people just to clear the President's name. On this point, one can safely assume the investigation on the Mamasapano debacle by the DOJ would most certainly clear the President of any blame.
So for as long as the real truth is kept from the Filipino people, and the spin masters of Malacañang make us all feel stupid, the whole nation cannot move forward. Yet… people are saying that we should allow Pres. Aquino to finish his term. Because we in Cebu do not have a Metro Rail Transit we do not feel the incompetence of the Aquino Regime. Today only half the trains of the MRT are running and the patience of commuters is running out. Yet a massive infrastructure is being constructed in Metro Manila in order to ease their massive traffic.
I was in Manila last Thursday as I was invited to be one of the jurors for the 50th Grand Anvil Awards and you can see that from the NAIA Centennial Airport, they are building flyovers in various state of construction just around the NAIA Airport complex. Another set of flyovers is being constructed along the airport road between NAIA Terminal III and the Resorts World complex. When those flyovers are opened to motorists, I'm sure the bad traffic along the roads leading to the NAIA Airport will be reduced… unlike the gridlock that is happening today. These are infrastructure projects that were designed and done during the Aquino Regime… but look at us in Metro Cebu? We got nothing from Pres. Aquino!
Today, Metro Cebu is suffering from traffic congestion and we do not even have anything in the future that brings some kind of hope to ease our traffic congestion. For those of us who've done our share in helping solve our traffic problems, we know that the solution to the traffic problems in Metro Cebu is through the three "E's" -- Education, Engineering, and Enforcement. If you ask me, through the years, the Philippine government has failed in all these three.
Take the case of educating our motorists. Most drivers do not even know what a double yellow line is, which is why CITOM puts plastic cones to prevent motorists from going out of the lane. This is especially true with our jeepney and taxi drivers. But look at the most violated areas in Cebu -- from Ayala Business Center, there are two left-turn lanes to Arch. Reyes Ave. or towards Cardinal Rosales Ave. and you will see that errant motorists use the third lane designed for vehicles to go straight yet these motorists also turn left. Why are they doing this? That's because of their lack of education and worse, a serious lack of enforcement. That's two of the "E's."
Yet more and more people are buying motorcycles and cars and yet the Land Transportation Office has not come up with a true program to educate motorists about traffic laws. In this country, when you can manipulate a vehicle, be it a car or motorcycle, you can get a driver's license!
So let's go to the last "E"… Engineering. I'll tell it to you straight. We can solve most of the traffic problems in Metro Cebu through flyovers. If we didn't have flyovers along Arch. Reyes Ave. or in Mandaue City or in the South Road in Pardo, traffic would be worse than it already is.
But then even Mayor Michael Rama sided albeit wrongly with the people who wanted to widen our roads, something of an impossibility because the building owners or houses on the roads to be widened want to be paid and there's just no money for road widening. So unless we Cebuanos unite together to find solutions to our traffic problems, things are going to get only worse. An elevated roadway can solve the Banilad-Talamban Road; traffic, similar to the one they have in Alabang. But do we want this?