Saturday, February 09, 2008 Carvajal: Back to Barili By Orlando P. Carvajal Break Point
I GET depressed listening to one self, and hearing others, criticize the national government repeatedly with no indication whatsoever one is being heard. The national government is just hopelessly in denial, hence unrepentant, of corruption and extra-judicial killing charges.
Speaker Joe de Venecia is the latest victim of the deny-and-deny-business-as-usual policy of the administration. He was ousted not to improve Congress but to punish him for his son’s indiscretion. The other is Mr. Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada, whom the PNP took for a while into protective custody, to use their Chief’s euphemism.
In Metro Cebu, anybody criticizing the LGUs meets the same frustration because cries of protest are falling on deaf ears. Traffic is chaotic and garbage collection erratic. Road repairs, if any, are botched up and littering is rampant. Unvaccinated stray dogs roam city streets while dengue has not been controlled. Many killings remain unsolved and drugs continue to be a menace. Metro Cebu is a mess.
I derive zero motivation from the inaction of our officials and the temptation is great to throw one’s arms up in surrender. But no, I will not yield to the temptation. I will take a respite from national and city issues and go back to Barili, my beloved hometown that has been the victim of so much official neglect all these years. Maybe here I can make something start to happen and that motivates me a lot.
I had occasion last Sunday to visit the town. The trip was of a personal nature but I took the opportunity anyway to give my town a quick once-over. Then I realized that it is not only the water system and the drainage that have been neglected. The town has generally been just left to go to pot all these years. Since eight years ago when I first came back from Davao, except for a new municipal hall, the town has not undergone any change for the better by way of infrastructure that would improve the quality of life of its citizens.
The public market is plain dirty, unhygienic. Streets are in a sad state of disrepair. Clogged drainage canals, as reported earlier, have been neglected as to cause heavy flooding. For the first time in a very long while I felt I could not be proud of my home town. Previous administrations have utterly neglected it and turned it into a mess.
I am calling on Mayor Aniceto Marinas to stop this official neglect and heed the governor’s call to go beyond politics to help the town stand proud again. I wait eagerly for the mayor and his team to start making good on the promise to rehabilitate the drainage system first and then move on to attack Barili’s other priorities like good roads, a modern sanitary market and above all a reliable water system.
