Celebration to highlight solutions to traffic, waste problems

Mega Cebu month kicks off

Simple ways to help ease traffic and waste problems in Cebu will take center stage this month in celebration of the Mega Cebu Month.

The month-long celebration kicked off yesterday with a program held at the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc.-Eduardo Aboitiz Development Studies Center (RAFI-EADSC).

This year’s Mega Cebu Month carries the theme “Mega Cebu, Pwede Kaayu” with sub campaigns “Limpyu Cebu, Pwede Kaayu” and “Tuman Cebu, Pwede Kaayu.”

The “Limpyu Cebu, Pwede Kaayu” sub campaign focuses on how everyone can help make Cebu cleaner, while the “Tuman Cebu, Pwede Kaayu” encourages the driving public to follow traffic rules.

Carol Ballesteros, Mega Cebu communication and stakeholders relationship manager, said they have developed flyers and short videos that will be distributed among gasoline stations and shown in theaters and taxicabs under MiCab in line with the campaign.

“We have seven videos that tackle about traffic, basura (waste), flooding, governance, and many more (saving resources like water and energy, tourism, nationalism and patriotism). Some theaters have already agreed to show the videos for free during breaks and also in taxicabs of MiCab,” she said.

Ballesteros said that since 2013, they have been doing massive campaigns for the people to know about Mega Cebu.
In 2014, awareness at the household level was only seven percent, while awareness through the Internet and social media was at a high 73 percent.

“We did more activities and information campaigns and again did a survey in May this year and saw significant growth from seven percent to 43 percent at the household level and from 73 percent to 91 percent out of the 2,000 respondents we surveyed,” Ballesteros said.

She said the goal is to achieve 100 percent awareness; hence they are adopting the campaign “Mega Cebu, Pwede Kaayu”  to encourage everyone to take part in promoting Mega Cebu.

Activities lined up in Cebu this month include the cleanup drive every Saturday and the extemporaneous speaking contest with the Toastmasters Club.

There will also be a Youth Congress on Sept. 12 at the University of San Jose Recoletos (USJ-R) and a debate on whether Metro Cebu Development Coordinating Board (MCDCB) should become an authority or not on Sept. 26 in partnership with the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.

“We will have a part two of our learning materials development that will now be using flash cards in partnership with the Department of Education. DepEd also said that they will  adopt Mega Cebu as a theme for all science projects of their students because September is also Science Month for the academe,” she said.

Other activities also include essay-writing contest, slogan-making contest and video-making contest.

Local government officials who attended yesterday’s kickoff said they will be adopting the campaign in their localities.

Consolacion Mayor Teresa Alegado said that she plans to do the cleanup drive every Saturday at her municipality with the participation of all sectors.

She said the programs under Mega Cebu is very doable and can really be done by everyone in every municipality and city.

Cordova Mayor Adelino Sitoy said they are also doing many projects involving solid waste management and traffic in their locality.

“Most of the traffic congestion is felt in Lapu-Lapu City area, but I think once the third bridge is built, traffic should improve significantly,” he said.

Roberto “Bobby” Aboitiz, MCDCB chairman, gave updates on the achievements of MCDCB.

He said that the board has already presented five major projects to the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) and that the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has already completed the Roadmap for Metro Cebu 2050.

“The projects include area traffic management, water supply masterplan, flooding, septic requirements of cities and solid waste. What’s lacking is the financial and feasibility study,” he said.