Passengers are seen hanging on the backs of passenger jeepneys as traffic worsens along N. Bacalso Ave., approaching the underpass construction site, after Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña pulled out the city’s traffic enforcers assigned in the area.
CHAOS ON THE ROAD
Gridlock in Mambaling reaches 2 km as war between Osmeña and Caindec rages on
The traffic in Barangay Mambaling went from bad to worse.
The massive pileup of vehicles along Natalio Bacalso Avenue in Cebu City doubled during peak hours on Monday morning after Cebu City Mayor Tomas
Osmeña pulled out all 24 traffic enforcers assigned in Barangay Mambaling in the wake of his word war with Victor Caindec, Land Transportation Office in Central Visayas (LTO-7) director.
Caindec
The gridlock stretched to at least two kilometers from the usual 500 meters to a kilometer when the construction of the underpass started in August 2017.
Several commuters were seen disembarking from vehicles and walking all the way to where the traffic was already flowing to get a ride.
But the traffic might even worsen today when classes in nearby University of San Jose-Recoletos Basak Campus resume.
The university didn’t have classes on Monday to commemorate the feast of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
But the inconvenience of the riding public was not enough to convince Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña to redeploy the 24 traffic personnel who were previously assigned near the underpass construction site in Barangay Mambaling.
He said he was even willing to resign as mayor if Caindec would be able to properly manage the traffic, not just in Mambaling, but in the entire city.
“Just Mambaling first, then I’ll give him (Caindec) the entire city’s traffic to manage. No problem with that. Let us see,” Osmeña said in an interview.
“I have to give them a chance. They seem to make it appear that I’m holding on to power. So when they say that they’ll show me (how to manage the traffic), then I surrender it to them. Now show me how to do it,” he added.
Osmeña
Osmeña earlier apologized to the public for pulling out the traffic personnel in the area but said traffic management in Mambaling would now be the responsibility of the LTO.
To inform the public of the new set up, the mayor ordered a team to put up tarpaulins near the underpass project in Mambaling.
“There will be more banners to follow,” he said. Caindec, however, stood his ground and said he would not give in to Osmeña’s ploy.
In a press conference, he said traffic management in Mambaling was supposed to be the job of the city government, not the LTO.
“Tommy wants us to believe that his failure to fix the traffic in Mambaling is the failure of LTO. (Let me tell you that) the traffic problem in the area has been Tommy’s failure from the beginning. Let him be accountable for it,” Caindec said. Caindec said he too was not spared from the traffic in Mambaling because he lived in the area.
“The traffic problem in Mambaling is a symbolism of the ineptness of our city mayor to address the problem. He has been in power for 30 years, but has not solved the traffic problem in the city,” he said.
“He is the city mayor. Our expectation towards him is very high. During his campaign, he promised to make Cebu City number one again. Did he not promise it? Did he not campaign on the back of that proposition? But do you think we are number one now?” he added.
Caindec said he was grateful to Cebu City Councilor Dave Tumulak for manning the traffic in the area, together with at least two policemen, early morning on Monday.
“I commend Councilor Tumulak for managing the traffic well. He should be the mayor of Cebu City,” he said.
Tumulak was on his way to Cebu City Hall from his home in Barangay Basak-Pardo when he passed by the area at around 6:30 a.m. on Monday.
He said he could not help but assist the two policemen in managing the traffic flow for two hours.
Tumulak admitted that the absence of traffic enforcers in Mambaling worsened the congestion.
After Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña pulled out CITOM traffic enforcers along N. Bacalso Ave., police officers were deployed in the area. CDN PHOTO/ JUNJIE MENDOZA
“It would really take time for the drivers to agree which lanes would go first. We have to remember that vehicles from three lanes would be converging at a single-lane road beside the underpass. That’s very difficult,” he explained.
“It’s really hard if there are no traffic enforcers here. Even if we have two policemen, they are not really that knowledgeable in manning the traffic,” he added.
Senior Supt. Royina Garma, director of the Cebu City Police Office, said policemen would help man the traffic in Mambaling during peak hours — from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
She, however, declined to give reporters the exact number of policemen who were assigned to handle the traffic situation in the area.
“I cannot give you the numbers for now, but they are just on the ground to control the traffic,” Garma said.
Katrina Marie Alvarez, a college student in one of the universities in downtown Cebu City, knew that traffic would be bad on Monday following the mayor’s pronouncement to remove all traffic enforcers in Mambaling.
So she left her house in Minglanilla town at 7 a.m. , hoping to be in school before her first class started at 9 a.m.
She arrived in the nick of time.
Alvarez appealed to both Osmeña and Caindec to straighten up and set side their differences which caused inconvenience to the public.
“They should not let their egos prevail. Without people manning the Mambaling area, the traffic will get even worse because some drivers don’t know how to follow traffic rules and are even very aggressive,” said Alvarez, 19.
“As public officials, they should serve the people professionally. Instead of pointing fingers, they should help each other since both sides have the same goal — to lessen the traffic congestion for the betterment of the city,” she added. /with reports from Nestle L. Semilla and Gerard Vincent Francisco, USJ-R Journalism Intern