Let the city make trips to Pit-os less stressful

It happened when everybody seemed to be on the go. There were students on way to school as there were office employees rushing to work. Transportation units of all makes and kinds (like small sized motorcycles, Japan discard multicabs, the ubiquitous jeeps and luxurious utility vans) appeared to be following an unending line of vehicles. Luckily for me, they were all on the opposite lane and so my driving was less stressful.

I am not talking about a view while maneuvering on a free way in California. Far from it. What I saw was an interminable procession of motor vehicles, while I was then making a morning trip to Barangay Pit-os. Particularly, it was the scene I encountered when I hit the street immediately after the Talamban Police Station and the house of retired Judge Pedro Son, an honorable former government official.

By their sheer volume, the vehicles coming to the city literally clogged every square meter of the road that they necessarily had to run on a very low speed. Even if I could discern from the faces of the drivers that they were in a hurry, they just could not afford to cruise faster. Every once in a while though, some daring (actually that should mean less courteous) drivers would over take those in front of them and suddenly close the lane such that I could hear shouts from chauffeurs who felt wronged by mindless opportunists.

The problem I am trying to make obvious is the absence of a highway to serve the spiraling number of subdivisions in Barangays San Jose, Bacayan and Pit-os. Area. These places used to be mostly agricultural with residents sparsely spread in large areas. Of recent years however, high-end residential subdivisions, such as that of the Aboitizes, and low-budget housing projects have been carved out of steep mountains in eye-popping numbers and in the process, multiplying the population. Even schools have sprouted in unexpected figures.

Yet, we have the very same narrow road that used to service Pit-os when I bought a small property there in the early 80's. That's right. For more than two decades, the city has showcased the meaning of Pit-os as in lisod because specially now, it is lisod to travel there in the midst of unimaginable traffic grid. This road has not been widened. So, if it could contain the few vehicles that traveled on it twenty years ago, surely its space must now be unable to absorb present numbers.

In all honesty, I cannot reconcile the failure of the city administration to meet the demands of the city constituency and its boast of having budgetary surplus. His Honor Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña recently stated, as if to bolster his claim of fiscal prudence that we have money in the bank unspent. That should be equated with budgetary surplus.

Why should there be extra funds on deposit when such basic service as maintaining adequate road networks is not met? I like to believe that the city's yearly income should be appropriated to service the city itself within the year, not after. Each peso a local government unit deposits in the bank is a peso worth of public service the public is deprived. 

It is bad fiscal management to place idle money in the bank when the delivery of basic services is hampered precisely because the reason our officials put up to justify such paucity of action is lack of available funds. In other words, our leaders do not tell us the truth when they claim that projects are hampered by low tax money. Because to me, the city earns so much yearly, such annual income should be spent within the fiscal year on projects, like better road networks, to make the life of the residents more worth our while.

Had the city managers been at par with their avowed duties they could have seen the establishment of many residential subdivisions necessitating newer and wider roads. This Talamban-Pit-os road, for one, could have been widened from its two lanes to a more serviceable four-lane highway and perhaps, a new parallel street opened up. Had that taken place, trips to Pit-os area should never have been as it is now, stressful.