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Saturday, April 05, 2003
Editorial: Not only about business
It is good that City Traffic Operations Management (Citom) Chief Valeriano “Bobit” Avila was honest enough in answering the one important question raised by commuters on the re-imposition of the two-way traffic scheme in Colon St.: Why?
So now we know that it all started with the request of the Colon Business Association supposedly to decongest the flow of vehicles in neighboring streets.
In this, the point that Avila is a member of that group and thus will also benefit from whatever it will gain from the move can be momentarily set aside. So too his claim that he inhibited himself from the board’s deliberation on the matter.
Instead, consider the merits of the suggestion.
Avila said that one of the businessmen’s complaints was that when Colon was limited to one-way traffic, there was traffic congestion near the street’s south and north entry.
There are two aspects of the claim: one, that there was traffic congestion and, two, that it was caused by the one-way traffic scheme in Colon.
On the first aspect, it looks like only the businessmen complained vehemently about the supposed traffic congestion in Colon’s neighboring streets. Ordinary drivers and commuters were apparently not bothered much by it.
Or if they were, they must not have seen its connection with the one-way traffic scheme in Colon. Surely, there were many other reasons why those streets got congested.
Thus, before Citom re-imposed the two-way traffic scheme in Colon and a few other city streets, there was no visible protest by majority of drivers and commuters to the one-way traffic scheme. Proof of this was their surprise when the setup was changed this week.
The point then is that Citom, and to a certain extent the Cebu City Council that blessed the change, should not have limited itself to what the Colon businessmen were thinking.
Any traffic scheme imposed in Colon, being the old center of the city, affects the other routes as well. And whatever Citom and the Council do there, businessmen will not be the only ones affected but also the thousands of Cebuanos that share its use.
Duterte’s job
The recent bombing of Sasa wharf in Davao that killed 16 people is indeed a condemnable act, one that should prod the city’s constituents to rally behind their mayor, Rodrigo Duterte, in the effort to pinpoint the perpetrators.
The sooner the suspects are arrested, the better for everybody concerned.
This should not, however, be taken to mean they should be rash in their acts or take the law in their hands. Which is what is apparent when unidentified men lobbed explosives on three mosques in predominantly Muslim places in Davao hours after the Sasa bombing.
Since the Sasa bombing and the other deadly explosion near the Davao City airport last March were blamed on the Muslim separatist group Moro Islamic Liberation Front, it is possible the attack on the mosques was retaliation by Christians.
Which is a dangerous act, as this might spark a confrontation between Muslims and Christians in Davao.
In this sense, Mayor Duterte must deal with the violence in Davao evenly. He must go hard against the airport and wharf bombers as well as those that lobbed grenades at the mosques.
(April 5, 2003 issue)
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