A handful of Pinoys are into money laundering

Last Sunday, The Philippine Star came up with a headline, “Phl evades FATF Blacklist.” To the great number of Star readers, only a handful understood that headline news because really, few Filipinos are into money laundering. An estimated 99.9 percent of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) send their meager incomes back home in proper banking or lending institutions that operate where most of the OFWs are found. Only a handful of Filipinos like the wife of Sen. Lito Lapid were caught smuggling cash into the US.

But it doesn’t mean that the signing of Republic Act. No.10167 or “An Act to further Strengthen the Anti-Money Laundering Law or RA 10168 “The Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012” isn’t doing the country any good. It does and I’m glad that Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III signed these two bills into law so that those corrupt government officials can no longer hide the money they stole in our banks.

* * *

Last Monday afternoon, I got a formal invitation from Ador G. Canlas, Officer-In-Charge of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH-7), to attend the Traffic Impact Assessment made on various major intersections in Cebu City as conducted by the DPWH Project Management Office. But this is the problem with many central government offices, they somehow decided to hold a briefing “hora mismo,” right away, which meant it was going to be in conflict with the taping of my show featuring the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). So I guess you can read about this in the papers today. We’ll just make our comments on that briefing in future columns.

Meanwhile, looking at the proposed plans for the BRT, I couldn’t help but notice that one thing that seems to be an integral part of this plan is to have real “walkable” sidewalks on both sides of the BRT route. This has to be done because the major difference between the BRT and the jeepney is that, the jeepney is literally a “door-to-door” transport system, while the BRT brings you to various stops… though I’m not exactly sure how far in-between are the stops. This means passengers would have to walk to their final destination if they live in-between stops. The exercise would be good for them. I just hope that sidewalk vendors would not be allowed there.

Of course it goes without saying that we Cebuanos have become so used to this system since the time the Americans left Cebu right after the surrender of the Japanese Imperial Army to take in their new mission or assignment, the occupation of Tokyo. Thus in doing so, they had to bring on their LST transport ships some 9,000 plus Japanese soldiers who surrendered in Ilihan, Sogod because they had no time to construct concentration camps for the Japanese prisoners. Fearing reprisals from an angry Cebuano populace, the prisoners were repatriated back to Japan in a huff.

In the end, the American soldiers left a lot of military trucks and jeeps, which were then sold by lots to enterprising Cebuanos and thus began the bus companies that plied the routes once traversed by the train, which was no longer in operation as the American bombers bombed many railway lines and bridges. Enterprising Cebuanos then bought the MacArthur type jeeps and cut a door at the back, similar to the tartanilla and voila! We had our first mass transit system in place, which, 67 years after World War II, is still our main form of mass transit, although the jeepney has grown larger with diesel engines.

But the back opening of the jeepney, plus the reality that many of our jeepney drivers are not disciplined is one of the major causes of our traffic congestion. Jeepneys stop by the roadside to pick up passengers but other jeepneys would also stop nearby to get passengers, thus causing traffic congestion. We have studied this very well for a long time now and I fully believe that this is one problem that the BRT would solve.

The other problem is the reality that many Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) just cannot ride the jeepney as quickly as they can because of the height of the jeepney. My understanding with the BRT system is that, the platform is elevated… hence it is easier for people on wheelchairs to board these air-conditioned buses… yes, air-conditioning is also one big advantage of the BRT vs. the jeepney.

As I pointed out already, any mass transit system that replaces the venerable jeepneys is good for Cebu… after all Cebu is no longer just for us Cebuanos as we now have so many foreigners living here and have made Cebu their home. Now if the BRT as good as it is advertised, you can definitely see me ride a BRT to places I frequent, which means I can save gasoline on those trips. This fact alone means that the BRT is a blessing to Cebu.

* * *

Email: [email protected]