A google satellite image of the mountain barangays in Cebu City shows that there are only a few roads leading into these areas. | Delta Dyrecka Letigio
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City government needs P150 million to open more roads in the mountain barangays to improve the economic activities in these areas.
Lawyer Joey Daluz, special assistant to Mayor Edgardo Labella, said this as he highlighted the city’s need for new roads as a way to help ease the traffic in the city center and to allow more commerce between the mountain barangays and downtown Cebu City.
The P150 million will fund 10 kilometers worth of roads in areas such as Barangays Sudlon I, Sudlon II, Pulangbato, Pung-ol Sibugay, Lusaran, and other mountain barangays.
“As the Roman Empire became a very big empire, they built roads giving way to the saying, ‘all roads lead to Rome.’ In this way, if we want more economic activities in Cebu City, we need to open up more roads,” said Daluz.
Daluz said the mountain barangays would need more roads so the farm products would be easily transported to the city center.
Aside from that, Daluz said this would also be in preparation of the Cebu Expressway, which the Department of Transportation was planning to build along the Cebu mountain ranges traversing the metro from Naga City in the south to Liloan town in the north.
The Cebu Expressway is a 40-meter-wide road, a part of the Integrated Intermodal Transportation System (IITS), which will also include a monorail in the downtown metro, bus rapid transit (BRT) in Cebu City, and cable cars to the mountain barangays.
Read more: DOTr: Cebu’s BRT, cable cars, monorail system up and running in 2021
The expressway is expected to be finished within five to six years, and Daluz said Cebu City was planning to complement this expressway with other roads in the mountain barangays.
During the budget hearing on August 29, Councilor David Tumulak, asked Daluz if the mayor could also look into creating more roads in the interior portions of densely populated residential areas in downtown Cebu City, such as Barangays San Nicolas, Pardo, and Kinasangan.
Tumulak said these areas had been prone to fire and would need reblocking.
He said having roads in these inner areas would also ease the traffic from the main thoroughfares.
Daluz said he would raise the concern to the mayor and assured the council that the road opening would be subject to their approval before implementation.
The P150 million was already approved by the committee on budget as part of the P2.5 supplemental budget of the city for the remaining months of 2019, as requested by Mayor Edgardo Labella.
The entire supplemental budget is still subject for approval of the Cebu City Council, and they planned to discuss it on September 3./dbs