I received some reactions regarding the three latest topics I wrote about in this column that I would like to highlight here. The first is from Dr. Lawrence Liao all the way from Hisroshima University (HU) in Japan. Dr. Liao, a Cebuano who got his doctorate in marine biology in Canada and is now teaching at the HU Graduate School of Biosphere Sciences, has this to say about our worsening traffic situation in Cebu: “I also enjoyed your views… concerning underground as the way to go for Cebu in the future. No one has ever proposed this idea before as any such suggestion will always be countered by claims of tropical inundation and submarine scenarios.
“I would like to add,” Dr. Liao suggests, “that perhaps Cebu should also start thinking about regulating the number of vehicles that enter its streets each year as a way to bring traffic to more manageable levels. The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), the Land Transportation Office (LTO), and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) continue to gloat year after year the increasing statistics and revenue from car registrations and taxes that continue to boost government revenues, without due consideration for the carrying capacity of roads and the real needs of the city population.”
He adds: “I’m sure there are many people with PhDs in transportation management and urban planning in the employ of many government offices but they seemingly cannot offer solutions on the ground. In effect, revenue generation clearly took greater priority in exchange for the comfort and safety of the traveling public.
“The government can perhaps learn and benefit from the highly successful Certificate of Entitlement System for vehicles in Singapore. The Bureau of Customs can regulate the entry of second cars from Japan and elsewhere, the Department of Trade and Industry can perhaps regulate the number of cars manufactured by companies, and the DOTC can make it more expensive to own dilapidated, smoke belching, and hazardous vehicles.”
I agree wholeheartedly with Lawrence and I certainly hope someone out there in the halls of power in this country will find sense to take a serious look at his suggestions.
An American motorist now based in Cebu who does not want to be named also e-mailed to me his take on the idiots driving cars in our streets, thus: “I just loved your column “On the Road to Idiocy.” I just happened across it at my hotel. I am from the United States and as you may know traffic in my country is infinitely more orderly than here in the Philippines. Of all the things that are different here I simply can’t understand why Filipinos live with your traffic “patterns” 🙂
“Your statement ‘and we wonder why this country is going nowhere’ is sad, but I can’t say if it is true. My take on the traffic problem is a bit different. Maybe most drivers are not idiots but (result from) a lack of strong traffic laws and enforcement. I took a picture yesterday while walking near Ayala Mall. I found many vehicles parked on the sidewalk !!!! No room on the street, will just park on the sidewalk. (That will) never happen in the US.” Need I say more?
Finally, my friend Paul Gerschwiler, who has done much work tracing the cultural history of Boljoon (published in 2012) and also of Argao (to be published soon) e-mailed his reaction to my column last week. Paul writes: “There they are again, the history storytellers. And of course, they have the means to produce nice video clips that charmingly fool the heads of our locals. I just wonder what is the purpose, or the gain, behind such fiction.
“Due to active trade, pre-Hispanic Cebu (port area) probably had religious influences from Madjapahit culture and Islam. Echevarria points to that direction. Pigafetta, however, comments on the Moors: ‘We burnt this village down and erected a cross on the public square, as a sign of the inhabitants being heathens. Had they been Moors we’d have erected a column of stone to show the hardness of their hearts, because the Moors are much harder to convert than the heathens.’
“That statement, by the way, is a History of Christianity in a nutshell.”
Paul has a funny way of correcting errors that pseudo-historians foist on us from time to time. But the statement above, quoted from Pigafetta, eyewitness and chronicler of the ill-fated Magellan expedition of 1521 should settle the issue once and for all.