That TESDA sidewalk should be moved again

Today is the 9th anniversary of the passing to eternal life of the Philippine Star publisher, my friend and mentor, the late Manong Maximo Villaflor Soliven who had a relapse of his pneumonia while he was on a trip to Tokyo. He felt so bad, he took a hotel car to take the next flight back to the Philippines, but he collapsed in front of a Fire Station near the Narita International Airport and was rushed by the ambulance to the hospital where he expired. I was on my way to the Kabkaban Festival in Carcar when I heard the news.

I owe my life as a media personality to Manong Max Soliven as he plucked me out as Vice President of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Inc. and turned me into his “Alikabok” then to write columns in The Freeman - with thanks to the late Freeman publisher Juanito Jabat who grabbed the opportunity to let me write columns in The Freeman - and a year later, Manong Max asked me to go to Ma’am Betty Go-Belmonte to be interviewed and turned me into a columnist in The Philippine Star.

Over the weekend, Mrs. Preciosa Soliven, the widow of Manong Max Soliven was in town for her first visit to Cebu since Manong Max left us. I invited her to be our guest at the 888 News Forum today at the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel so she could talk about the National Convention of Theosophists. To our devout readers, may I asked you to please pray for the repose of the soul of Manong Max Soliven, who was the Dean of Columnists in the country.

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If you didn’t know, last October 21, I already wrote about the issue of the sidewalk at the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, which was the headline news of The Freeman, last Sunday which blared, “Trees ruining sidewalk plans.” So allow me to reprint that portion of my Oct.21st article because the issues have remained the same and have not changed.

“Another sidewalk issue that we’ve already written about is the sidewalk along the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, which last January, Mayor Mike Rama wanted to lead the charge to destroy their fence because this national government agency which is funded by taxpayers money did not give an inch of their wall to pedestrians, especially those working at the AsiaTown I.T. Park.

Well, months ago because of public pressure, TESDA started building a new wall setting it back to make room for the sidewalk. Lo and behold! The new sidewalk is lined up with trees, thus making it very difficult for pedestrians even to walk a straight line! What I would like to know is why has TESDA given only a small part for a sidewalk, when there is still a huge space for a set back? Clearly DPWH who is implementing this project only gave the legal minimum for the TESDA setback.

Again this brings us back to issue of giving more space to the pedestrians, many of whom pay their taxes and funding TESDA. While they haven’t finished with their fencing, I suggest that DPWH gives more to this setback or cut those trees. But then why should we cut those trees in the first place? They give shade to the pedestrians. So TESDA must move some more to make way for the pedestrians.”

TESDA and the DPWH who is building that fence should have moved a few feet or a couple of meters further because it will only move their parking space and not affect a single building. Again we must remind TESDA officials and DPWH officials that we the taxpayers pay for their salaries and wages and they should have considered the plight of the people working at the AsiaTown IT Park who are the now working heroes of this nation paying taxes for the government. Surely their concerns should be addressed.

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Now that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit is over, I suggest that the Aquino administration come up with an independent body composed of members of the academe, economists, and political analysts to come up with a no-holds barred study on whether the APEC Summit that was held in Manila was worth holding it there. The social media network is full of various analysis on this issue, but all of them are unofficial.

We saw on TV the thousands of commuters walking many kilometers in the coastal road from Cavite because the roads were closed to traffic. I already said in my earlier columns that I concur with most critics that the APEC Summit should never have been held in Manila. But if there were a great economic benefit for the Philippines, then the suffering of the people in Metro Manila would be worth it.         But this is why we need an independent body to give us the right analysis of the APEC summit. We need to do this in order to find out whether Manila should be hosting something like another APEC Summit in the near future.

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