The Metro Cebu Traffic Authority refiled

I read a news report coming from Cebu City Traffic Operations and Management (CITOM) Executive Director Raffy Yap who was with the Kiwanis Club telling them quite frankly that the volume of traffic in Cebu City was impossible to handle. While I fully agree that our traffic problems have reached a critical stage, however things can still be done if only CITOM went all out in enforcing traffic rules.

One reality that we all have to live with is the fact that Cebu City is not alone in this traffic problem. It is a shared problem with the cities of Metro Cebu. During my last year as CITOM Chief, I somehow convinced Rep. Raul del Mar to refile a bill on what would have been Cebu's version of Manila's Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA). That bill got stuck because of a family squabble between then Sen. John "Sonny" Osmeña and then Mayor Tomas Osmeña as to who would be CMDA Governor. Call it a turf problem all within the family. So that plan was shelved.

Then in the Year 2004, I convinced Rep. Del Mar to refile this bill and rename it as the Metro Cebu Traffic Authority (MCTA), which he filed. But then it ran again into trouble when then Mayor Tomas Osmeña demanded to have a veto for Cebu City. As you know, having a veto is similar to what they have at the United Nations (UN) Security Council, which is the reason why the civil war in Syria continues two years later. So again it was shelved.

Well the good news I got from Rep. Raul del Mar is that he refilled this bill under House Bill no. 372. Let us hope that the group called Mega Cebu would go out of town to convince all the Metro Cebu mayors to accept this law and that all congressmen in Metro Cebu co-author this bill. If and when this happens, traffic management in Metro Cebu will be unified under one command and control agency. Honestly, we needed this yesterday!

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I got a text message from the Villavicencio family that their father, whom we fondly know as Brother Stanley Villavicencio, Cebu's modern day Lazarus, passed away yesterday dawn. I have known Bro. Stanley for a long time as he was a very amiable employee at the Mactan International Airport (MCIA) as he was a civilian employed by the Aviation Security Command (AVESCOM).

But in March 1993, there was a dramatic event that changed his life when he coughed blood and was rushed to the Chong Hua Hospital. There he continued vomiting blood until his heartbeat slowed down and he was declared brain dead. The family could not believe what happened to him and kept him in the hospital and prepared for his burial three days later. Then Bro. Stanley woke up as if he had no medical problem. It was then that he revealed that he met face-to-face with our Lord Jesus Christ who came as the Divine Mercy. Since then he became Cebu's Apostle for the Divine Mercy.

I remember one time that Bro. Stanley approached me if I had "friends" at the US Embassy as he was invited to be interviewed at the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). Since he had 13 children and no means of livelihood, he could not pass the visa requirements. However, I told Bro. Stanley I had no contacts with the US Embassy. Of course as the long story goes, he was denied his request for a US visa.

But Bro. Stanley's faith was so strong in his faith and he told me that if our Lord Jesus Christ wished him to be in the US, this would happen. Soon after the denial of his visa, when EWTN learned of this, they called up their Senator, a famous man, Sen. Richard Lugar requesting him to allow Bro. Stanley to the US. Right there, Bro. Stanley got a phone call from Sen. Lugar telling him to go back to the US Embassy for his visa. Soon enough, Bro. Stanley was in the US giving talks about what happen to him and why he has spent the rest of his life in the service of the Divine Mercy.

I have since attended most of the Divine Mercy Convention at the University of Cebu (UC) Campus near SRP and last May 4 was the 18th Divine Mercy Convention, but unfortunately, Bro. Stanley went there only for a short while as he was too ill to stay there long enough. I didn't realize that this would be his last year.

Now Bro. Stanley is gone to the bosom of our Lord Jesus Christ. If he died 20 years ago, I'm sure that only his family would remember him. But the Lord granted him 20 more years in the service of the Divine Mercy and now we can count on Bro. Stanley to be our intercessor in heaven and I count myself as lucky to have known Bro. Stanley. His remains is in his home in Mambaling and burial is slated to be on July 21. May we request our pious readers to please pray for the repose of his soul.

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