Saturday, January 12, 2008 Barrita: City of the future By Eddie O. Barrita Small Bites
LONDON-BASED Finance Direct Investment magazine of the Financial Times Group has ranked Cebu City as eight in the Top Ten Asian Cities of the Future.
Cebu City can still rise to the top when it becomes debt-free in the future.
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The influx of people to Cebu will continue, Mayor Tomas Osmeña laments, if other areas in the country are left out in development.
Expect them to come to the city, Mayor Tom, because your South Road Properties will draw them like a magnet when investors finally develop the area.
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Cebu City was nowhere to be found in the infrastructure category in the international magazine’s survey.
Maybe those who conducted the survey got tired of counting the potholes on the city’s streets.
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Government, searching for more revenues, is studying to tax short messaging system (SMS) or texting and hike taxes on alcohol, cigarettes.
Has texting become a vice?
Will it not spark a text revolt in a country known as the world’s texting capital?
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Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila said taxing texting can discourage unproductive activities like spreading rumors and sending senseless text messages.
I just got a text message from one who opposed tax on text urging me to send the message to ten of my best friends.
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There’s a fresh move to amend the Constitution to allow the creation of a Muslim federal region in Mindanao that will finally solve the Moro rebellion rooted in their clamor for a Bangsa Moro homeland.
I recall there was also a move to amend the Charter to solve the country’s economic problems.
But the country experienced unprecedented economic growth and the peso strengthened against the dollar even without amending the Charter.
Maybe the Moro rebellion can also be solved sans charter amendments.
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At the last count, at least a dozen politicians have expressed their intention to run for president in 2010.
Is this their answer to the country’s unemployment problem?
