BUMPER to bumper traffic is now a daily occurrence at the southbound lane of N. Bacalso Avenue with the closure of the northbound lane as work continues for the underpass project in Barangay Mambaling, Cebu City.
CEBUANOS ASKED TO ‘BRACE FOR THE WORST’
Be ready for the worst.
The warning addressed to southern Cebu commuters came from the Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO) on Saturday, as neither the CCTO or the Land Transportation Office in Central Visayas (LTO-7) would be deploying enforcers to man the traffic on N. Bacalso Avenue in Barangay Mambaling tomorrow, a Monday.
It was the recent outcome of the escalating discord between Mayor Tomas Osmeña and LTO-7 Director Victor Caindec.
Osmeña, on Friday, announced via a Facebook post that he would be pulling out all of the city’s traffic enforcers assigned to Mambaling and let LTO-7 personnel take over.
This was in response to a dare posted earlier in the day by Caindec, also on social media, accusing the mayor of failing to address the Mambaling traffic and that he, Caindec, knew how to solve it.
But in return, he said, Osmeña should resign.
“No (I won’t be deploying LTO enforcers in the area). Why should I play into his gambit?” Caindec said in a statement sent to reporters yesterday.
For Caindec, the mayor’s decision was nothing but a “political maneuver” meant to transfer the blame to LTO-7 since the city government is lost for solutions in addressing the traffic nightmare in the area, where the 638-million underpass project is being constructed by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
“I would suggest to the mayor to hold off a bit his mental orgasm in anticipating the outcome of his gambit,” he added.
‘He asked for it’
But Osmeña, informed that Caindec was not accepting his counter-dare, said he was not keen on reconsidering his decision.
“He (Caindec) said it’s his job. The area is now his responsibility as he claims LTO is the only agency to man traffic. He asked for it,” Osmeña said in a text message to Cebu Daily News on Saturday.
He also slammed Caindec for not accepting his counter-dare.
“How is this my political play? He was the one who issued the challenge. Why is he going to back out now?” added Osmeña.
Caindec, however, said that by opting to pull out traffic enforcers in the area, it would be the Cebuanos who would have to deal with the consequences of Osmeña’s decision.
He then tried to put the blame back on the mayor, by saying, among others, that “His (Osmeña’s) threat to pull out CCTO out of the city’s streets is his decision alone. The city will have to live with that consequence and decide eventually if the mandate given to Tomas is well deserved or not. In my book, we deserve the politicians we deserve.”
The tension between the two public officials started when Caindec criticized Osmeña’s statement, posted on Facebook last week, which blamed LTO-7 for allegedly doing nothing to improve the “tedious process” of registering motorcycles in the region.
The mayor added it stemmed from a number of text messages he received from people asking his help because they were reportedly being fined P12,000 for driving unregistered motorcycles while their registration papers were still pending for approval in LTO.
“When I made my original post in response to this issue, all I said was that it is not (the public’s) fault that LTO takes so long to process their registrations so anyone caught by CCTO will have their fines waived and any fines issued by LTO will be paid personally by yours truly,” Osmeña explained.
In response, Caindec called for a press conference last Thursday, July 12, where he said that the mayor should “mind his own business” and focus instead in running Cebu City and should leave the matter involving motorcycle registration to LTO alone.
It was in the same press conference that Caindec also stepped up his attack on the mayor by pointing out that the city government has 156 vehicles with expired papers; and that Osmeña’s decision to issue an executive order (EO) impounding for 30 days the vehicles caught counterflowing in the city’s streets was illegal.
Caindec said the authority to impound vehicles belonged to LTO and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB).
It was after Osmeña belied Caindec’s claim, by saying those with expired registrations were most likely those no longer serviceable out of the city’s around 800 vehicles, that the LTO official began slamming the mayor on non-LTO related issues, such as the traffic congestion in Mambaling, the garbage collection, and the flooding in Cebu City.
CCTO
There are at least 24 traffic enforcers deployed on N. Bacalso Ave. and nearby access roads such as E. Sabellano, Macopa, Cabreros, Tagunol, Elorde, and F. Llamas Streets, to man both northbound and southbound traffic.
Francisco Ouano, chief of CCTO, told CDN in a separate phone interview that the Office of the Mayor has already advised their department to have their enforcers around the Mambaling underpass be reassigned to other areas.
He added that unless the mayor or LTO-7 will reconsider their respective actions, there will be no traffic enforcer to guide motorists near the Mambaling underpass on Monday.
“Well, expected na gyud na nato nga heavy traffic dinhang dapita, labi na kung rush hour. Mao na atong ipahibawo sa publiko. Advise sad namo magsayo sila sa ilang trabaho og sa skwelahan,” Ouano explained. (Heavy traffic is expected in that area, especially during rush hour. That’s what we want the public to know. We also advised them to leave their homes early for their work and classes.)
Ouano also urged the public to cooperate, at the very least, by observing traffic rules.
“Our mayor, he was given the right and authority to do what’s best for the city. But for now, we’re asking the public to cooperate with us, especially in times like these,” he added.