About the issue on the South Bus Terminal

It seems that Tropical Storm “Ondoy” has rattled the Arroyo government to the point that it is sending mixed signals to our people. In a report the other day. Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) has ordered the Agriculture Department (DA) to import rice as it is expected that the supply of locally produced rice would fall sharply as crop damage has already been tagged to hit P6 billion.

But Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap is saying that there are adequate food stocks. So, what is considered “adequate” for us? I believe that Pres.. Arroyo is right in buying imported rice. It is far better to have more than enough rice than we need than have empty bodegas when we begin scouring the countryside for more rice stocks.

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In this never-ending saga in the squabble between Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña vs. Gov. Gwen F. Garcia, another battleground has surfaced. This time it is the South Bus Terminal. Mayor Osmeña sided with the bus operators citing that a P5 entry fee is too much. Another issue is that the South Bus Terminal has no business permit from the City of Cebu. I would like to believe that all business operations done within the City of Cebu should have a business permit, unless they get an exemption of sorts. However, I don’t think that this was done deliberately because like it or not, all this was created for a more noble purpose.

However, we must refrain from being polarized and take the side of Mayor Osmeña or Gov. Gwen Garcia on this somewhat emotional issue. So allow me to give you some information that you may have already forgotten. For many decades, the area where the South Bus Terminal is located used to be the main Railway Terminal of Cebu, until this was bombed by the Japanese. While the railroad was never rebuilt, the area was still the choice by bus operators as terminal for buses plying to the north of Cebu.

But Cebu City then needed a real honest-to-goodness terminal, complete with toilet facilities so we could be the next Singapore. Enter Mayor Tomas Osmeña who was then the chair of the Metro Cebu Development Projects (MCDP). The South Bus Terminal was constructed under MCDP I (Financed by the Japanese government as an ODA Loan) as the City of Cebu needed a bus terminal that provides a transition from buses to jeepney. More importantly, the role of the bus terminal was to reduce traffic congestion as buses would now have an area to park and pick up passengers.

So MCDP I as a project had three major components: The widening of arterial roads, like V. Rama, B. Rodriguez and AS Fortuna and the operation of the Sydney Coordinated Automatic Traffic System (SCATS) for Cebu City’s modern traffic signal lighting system, and the South Bus Terminal, which under that agreement was to be operated by the Province of Cebu. Now whether business permits were discuss on this project, that’s for the legal people to ascertain. But certainly, terminal operations need terminal fees to sustain its operations.

As I was then Chairman of the Regional Development Council’s Infrastructure and Utilities Committee (RDC-IUC). I still recall that then the envious Mayor Alfredo Ouano questioned why Cebu City was getting a bus terminal and Mandaue wasn’t getting any? Hence the Japanese consultants and advisors verily agreed to have the North Bus Terminal in Mandaue City constructed. When the terminal was finished, the problem was who was going to operate the terminal. Since Mayor Ouano wasn’t willing to operate the terminal, he would now turn it into a school.

This incensed Mayor Osmeña, who then came up with a memorandum of agreement to lease the North Bus Terminal from Mandaue City. I remembered asking Mayor Osmeña, why Cebu City should feel obligated in running that terminal? He replied that if Mayor Ouano did what he wanted to do and turn it into a school, it would discredit Cebu in the eyes of the Japanese donors who gave us a lot of projects and endanger future ones.

So whether we like it or not, what is happening in the South Bus Terminal is good for the City of Cebu and good for the Province of Cebu. Issues like business permits are nothing but minor irritants to bigger issues of this political squabble. It should not affect the basic services that we are enjoying everyday, thanks to the generosity of the Japanese government for giving us the MCDP Projects I, II and III.

The last disbursement for the MCDP project was in 1995. So this is already a more than 14-year-old project and memories are fast dimming. So please tread slowly on this new battleground as it may just blow up on our faces and the Cebuanos will end as the biggest losers!

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