The enactment of the Bike Lane Ordinance by the Cebu City Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) or City Council was much-awaited news especially for biking enthusiasts and movers for a livable way of life in Cebu. How happy Joel and Edna Lee, Rye Kido, Pere Canin, Edwin Castillon, and others who have been pushing for this ordinance to come to life must be.
I can also imagine the glee in the faces of Tony Oposa, Tara Rama and determined road sharing movers for this development.
Most of all, I feel the excitement of our enthusiastic and creative youth leaders like Monica and Mishka, volunteers of Psychology Volunteers on Bike, with them realizing at a tender age that dreams do come true.
In July 2013 I invited them, and Cebu City Councilor Nida Cabrera, Joel Lee, Rye Kido and Pere Canin to talk about promoting a healthy way of life through community engagement and partnership with government and civil society on the CCTN television show “Partners in Law” hosted by the Cebu Lady Lawyers’ Association.
The youthful volunteers highlighted their initiatives which include the innovative ten themed bike rides that they organized in the summer of 2013 as well as the other environmental activities. They made bike maps from their trips to public markets, academic institutions, churches and even, take note, cemeteries.
They presented “Fostering Sustainable Bike Behavior” to the Environmental Committee of the Cebu City Council as part of the advocacy to push for a Bike Ordinance in the city as both a climate change mitigation measure and for the city to move towards the path to sustainability. They were always the inspiring guests in the radio dyRC radio show “Hagit sa Kinaiyahan” and other media platforms to spread awareness about biking, climate change and the road sharing movement and to inspire their colleagues that their endeavors can already make a difference.
Even at the road caravan with law students to protect the threatened century-old trees down south, they were readily available and showed they could be counted upon to support our natural heritage,
It is not a coincidence that this legislation, pushed for years by advocates, was finally approved by the Cebu City SP. Aside from the painstaking work, consultation work with various stakeholder determination of the indefatigable chairperson of the Environment Committee SP members Ma. Nida Cabrera and Cebu’s foremost sustainability exemplary Nestor Archival, not a few of the city’s local lawmakers led by Vice Mayor Edgar Labella are themselves bikers. They know how exposed to danger they and fellow enthusiasts are, when the behavior of those behind vehicles are not regulated and no dedicated lane is set aside in our chaotic streets for those who opt to bike.
It should also be noted that party membership was not a hindrance to the passage of this trail-blazing ordinance.
Its enactment is an acknowledgment that our people deserve the right not only to be safe and healthy but to exercise their choices in embracing a lifestyle that breaks away from fossil-fuel dependency. It is the responsibility of government to provide the infrastructure and the regulations to protect them as well. It was an exercise of the police power of the State at the local level.
Cebu City and the highly urbanized cities in Cebu such as Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu and Talisay certainly need more human-powered vehicles and means of transport to reduce the polluted and unhealthy air that we are constantly exposed to, at the expense of our health and a good quality of life.
The smog-filled atmosphere in Cebu, just like Metro Manila, should already compel our Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to issue a Circular to require the local government units (LGUs) to come up with the required local air quality action plan. The LGUs are largely in default in the performance of their mandates to implement and comply with the laws promulgated to protect us and our environment.
For the bike lane ordinance to be effective, a continuing vigorous engagement by stakeholders is essential. I have no doubt that the commitment of our leaders from the bikers groups and sustainability movements will never wane.
I can already see the sprouting of bike racks in universities and in front of buildings and the increased change in the mindset of drivers that they alone own the road.
Step by step, we are getting there. A vision of a livable and sustainable Cebu is within our reach.
Mabuhay!