While the iron on wasteful government spending is still hot, now might as well be a good time as any to look into other failed projects using public funds.
One of these was a component of the P10 billion Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project that necessitated the earth-balling and replanting of affected trees. Around 2,000 trees along the entire BRT route were identified as affected, thus the proponents’ call to relocate them.
More than 200 of these were Indian trees that stood along the center islands of Osmena Blvd. and Natalio Bacalso Ave. where dedicated BRT lanes under its Phase 1 component have now been built.
The Department of Transportation (DOTr) released an allocation of P17.5 million to the Cebu City Government in 2022 for the earth-balling and replanting of the trees. From June to August that year, the trees were thus earth-balled and transferred to Block 27 of the North Reclamation Area, the same site as the Covid-19 dormitory facilities across the Cebu Port Authority.
I pass that area quite often, so I am not oblivious to the state of health of those Indian trees. They stood there for a while, tall and proud in their new habitat, seemingly a robust exhibit of how they were taken care of in a city that sought for their care in its march to progress.
Today, those trees are dead.
Another government project that ended up a tragic fate was the Metro Cebu Bike Lane, a part of DOTr’s Metropolitan Bike Lane Networks under the Bayanihan II Law. Due to the lack of public transportation during the Covid-19 times, the use of bicycles was encouraged back then.
Cebu’s bike lane network was inaugurated in July 2021, with government officials and biking enthusiasts participating in a symbolic Unity Ride at the South Road Properties (SRP) where a three-kilometer bike lane was established as part of a grid that spans 129 kilometers and slices though Cebu City, Mandaue City, Talisay City and Lapu-lapu City.
Government press releases said that the SRP bike lane included a pedestrian sidewalk, solar studs, sheds with bike racks, benches and plant boxes, all designed for a safe space for cyclists.
Sadly, many of these features have now either deteriorated beyond redemption or just disappeared like cigarette smoke. Yes, we saw them for a while, sometimes much to the chagrin of motor vehicle drivers who felt that these only narrowed their right-of-way in public roads.
In Mandaue City, for instance, plastic bollards were installed to designate bike lanes even in small roads. Little by little, those fragile orange plastic barriers that most drivers considered nuisance were felled down, deliberately or otherwise, until they were obliterated.
The white and green pavement markings, signages and bike symbols that were part of the project have likewise faded out. The remaining roadside bike racks, mostly unutilized and housed in structures that look like jeepney stops, look like sad remnants of an ancient civilization.
And how much did the government spend for this? Nationwide, that’s P1.09 billion. In Metro Cebu alone, it cost P150 million.
It’s about time that we look into these wasted projects and hold those responsible for them accountable. There’s a long list of such failed endeavors funded by taxpayers’ money that authorities ought to seriously probe, if only to demonstrate that we shouldn’t be wasting scarce public funds.