WHEN Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña put his foot down to organizers of this year’s Regent Aguila Ironman 70.3 Asia-Pacific Championships because he didn’t want to inconvenience southern commuters, no one made a big deal out of it.
Never mind that the triathlon race had been using the Cebu South Coastal Road for its 90-kilometer bike segment since Cebu first hosted the event in 2009.
But Osmeña had a valid reason.
A portion of N. Bacalso Ave. in Barangay Mambaling has been closed to traffic because of an ongoing tunnel construction.
Anyway, the Cebu Marathon had also been barred from the south coastal road to prevent traffic woes in the last two years.
Osmeña said that it was not an easy decision but he is bound to answer to the public when concerns about heavy traffic and road safety are raised.
That news came out last June 23. End of story.
Last Friday, Liloan Mayor Christina Garcia Frasco also turned down event organizers, citing similar reasons.
After all, who’d want to paralyze northern traffic for eight hours?
“These major high-capacity roads provide the only direct access to and from Liloan and the north of Cebu. If closed for eight hours, over 100,000 people in Liloan will not have mobility. Combined with Consolacion, Compostela, Danao, and Carmen, plus commuters, the Ironman road closures will affect half a million people,” Frasco said.
I don’t know about you, but the commute to that part of the province can be, to put it mildly, frustrating. And that’s when there are no road closures. So imagine, if you will, when access to and from the north is barred. For eight whole hours.
“They (organizers) said they want entire road closure as their priority is the safety of their athletes. My priority is the welfare of our people,” she said.
Apparently, Atty. Ramil Abing, Province Sports Commission executive director, could relate because he acknowledged that her concern was legitimate, and that he respected her decision.
But not Vice Gov. Agnes Magpale, who said that Frasco’s announcement surprised her.
Tell me, what was so surprising about a local official putting the welfare of not just the residents of her town but also the welfare of all the commuters who use the concerned roads before the interest of the more than 2,500 participants of the race, which, come to think of it, only benefit a few?
Now Princess Galura of Sunrise Events is telling Cebu and the whole sporting community that the fate of the whole event rests entirely on Frasco’s approval of the route change.
And how is that?
Was Liloan ever part of the organization or planning of the event?
Seriously, Galura wouldn’t be in this predicament had Cebu City given its go-ahead to use the south coastal road, or, as Frasco put it, had the former secured “an actual Mayor’s Permit from Cebu City City so they could use the original route of Ironman.”
It looks like Galura has resorted to “shaming” the mayor into submission, but she didn’t count on Frasco remaining steadfast.
“No ‘deal’ can be made where it compromises the welfare of Cebuanos,” Frasco posted on her Facebook page.
I agree with Mayor Frasco.