IT seems the multi-sectorial alliance of Mabalacat City, a unit under the Office of the Mayor, is getting on the nerves and reaping the ire of some people particularly from the Traffic Management Board (TMB), a body created by an Executive Order of the Mayor, Marino "Boking" Morales.
An independent body, subservient to no one except to the people of Mabalacat City, the Traffic Management Board, chaired by Willie Feliciano, the mayor's uncle and the traffic czar, frowns on the encroachment by the multi-sectoral alliance on the TMB's turf and usurpation of its duties, it was learned by this writer.
The alliance, composed of transport, women, seniors vendors (both ambulant and sited) and the youth sector claims the TMB, has gained full advantage of Mayor Boking’s favors such that its head acts as if he is superman with superpowers and clout that he boasts that all his staff are now enjoying casual status, much over the status of most units and offices in the plantilla of the city government and which staff have been in the service for decades already and have rendered faithful and long service that this alliance. Such arrogant display of false pride and power!
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The Traffic Management Board (TMB) on the other hand performs its mandated duties and functions on the traffic situation in the city.
Feliciano, the traffic czar, is up and about at the early hours of the morning of each day, seriously observing traffic flow and movement and later sits down with the members of the TMB to thresh out the various traffic in orderliness to find solutions thereto.
Wency Marin, the public information officer and Jonathan Miole, the designated parking enforcement administrator confer daily with Willie to come up to viable measures to ease the burden of traffic. Railings were set up in Dau in order to regulate movements thereof as well as the pedestrians who often tend not to observe traffic rules. The setting up of these railings is a test project to see if they are effective.
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I've observed big trucks parked along MacArthur Highway in Barangays Dolores and Cacutud, Mabalacat City. They should be sternly warned not to use portions of the highway, to give pedestrians, commuters and motorists more space to navigate. Besides, these trucks are hazards to other vehicles.