CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña will not stop the ongoing underpass project along Natalio Bacalso Avenue by issuing a cease-and-desist order against it.
Osmena said he would only do so if the Department of Public Works and Highways in Central Visayas (DPWH-7) would have the funds to implement the widening of the roads beside the underpass project.
Osmeña said that stopping the work on the underpass while waiting for the DPWH to iron out terms on widening the road would only make the problem “worse”,“We are not going to tell them (DPWH) that ’stop now’ and wait for something to happen because there’s a big possibility that nothing will happen,” said Osmeña.
Osmena said this after Councilor Jocelyn Pesquera requested the Mayor to release a cease-and-desist order for the underpass project until the DPWH would be able to widen the roads beside the underpass project.
Pesquera made the request as a way to ease the traffic problems of the south-bound commuters, who could no longer pass by the remaining lanes of N. Bacalso Avenue due to the ongoing construction.
“The mayor should stop the project if there is no [road] widening because it will worsen our [traffic] situation in that area,” Pesquera told Cebu Daily News in a text message.
“Where in the world can you see that? We already have six lanes then they will reduce it to two lanes? Very poor planning,” Pesquera said.
If the underpass project will be finished, two lanes will be depressed underground while one lane will be passable in each side of the underpass.
The Barug PDP-Laban camp, then Barug Team Rama, whom Pesquera is allied with, raised the need to widen the roads first before starting the underpass construction when the underpass project was first lobbied in 2015.
However, Osmeña said that the problems entailed by the underpass construction are only because of the delay in its implementation.
“If we had done this five years ago, it would not have been a big problem. We have all kinds of problems because they delayed it,” Osmeña said.
Osmeña also challenged Pesquera to pursue her plan to file graft charges against DPWH if the underpass project will not ease the traffic situation in the area.