Seeing how a federal state works in Austin

For our special presentation on our talk show “Straight from the Sky,” we bring you a discussion on the youth who are helping and supporting Persons with Disabilities. We have JP Maunes, executive director of  VSP Philippines, and his friends from the Volunteer Services Overseas from the United Kingdom who came to Cebu to help PWDs here. So watch this interesting show on SkyCable’s channel 61 at 8:00 tonight with replays on Wednesday and Saturday. Replays also on MyTV’s channel 30 at 7:00AM and 9:00PM on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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Austin, Texas: Going to Houston is a must for me to see my high school buddy, Tony Rizarri. But just a two-and-a-half hour trip from Houston to Austin is my big bike buddy, Dr. Rogie and Ditas Borromeo with their daughter Gayle. Rogie now works in the City of Austin and he brought us to the State Capitol to see one of the oldest federal states in the United States.

This is where you can see firsthand the workings of a federal state. At the Capitol, we learned that their session hall is for the members of the House of Representatives and the man on top is the governor. This is what a federal state truly is. Today the Texas governor is Governor Rick Perry and the state has a Speaker of the House. This is something of a dream for me because that is exactly what Region 7 should be in the future.

I learned from Rogie that the City of Austin owns the power utility and the international airport. The City of Austin has a special one-stop-shop number 311 where problems such as problems of sanitation, or potholes on the road or trees to cut are reported and acted upon. Emergencies are reported in the usual 911. But Rogie tells me that 311 is busier for the City of Austin because Americans are not like Filipinos who don’t complain when they see something wrong with their city.

Rogie told me that if someone calls 311 complaining of a pothole… this is reported in their record books and it is fixed within the day… it gets fixed! Hmmm, why doesn’t Mayor Michael Rama try this type of governance? One case that Rogie told me was the time there was a power outage at the hospital and it took 8 minutes for the power back up systems to turn on. Because the city executives of Austin aren’t happy with the 8-minute response time, they are now working to reduce the time.

Last Saturday was a golfing day for us. So we took Rogie’s Ford King Ranch double cub pickup and drove to the Colovista Golf Course 40 minutes away from Austin listening to the Doobie Brother’s Listen to the Music.” Driving towards the golf course, one can immediately notice how patriotic Americans are… many establishments here proudly display the American Flag. Although July 4th is fast approaching, Americans display the Flag in their businesses or in their homes and do not have to wait for the 4th of July!

What about us Filipinos? The only time we display the Philippine flag is during our Independence Day celebration. Why is this so? Aren’t we Filipinos proud of our flag? Well, let’s take it from Pres. Benigno Aquino III himself… who proudly displays the Yellow Ribbon on his chest…but not the Philippine flag. So clearly, there is something wrong with this image and I dare say that it is time for us to change our ways, if not let us change our system of governance!

The Freeway system in the US is something that we Cebuanos should strongly consider. If we had such a Freeway, let’s say from Mandaue City to Bogo City, which is a hundred kilometers north of Cebu City or say, from Cebu City to Argao, 60 kilometers to the south, travel time would greatly be reduced. Then just think, if you’re driving at 100 kilometers per hour, driving to Bogo City would take a mere one hour from Cebu City and the same thing for Argao which would be less than an hour.

The consequence of having this freeway to the north or south is that people would drive to Bogo City to live while employed in Cebu City. Living in Bogo City means living with clean water and having lower cost of living…something that you cannot find in Metro Cebu. So the big question is… why is the Department of Public Works and Highways  not giving Cebuanos the freeway that we should have? The answer is simple… all infrastructures are concentrated in Metro Manila.

We did enjoy our golfing weekend with Rogie B. Tony Rizarri and Bimbo Borromeo and their friend Jose Fernandez, although the golf course was great but the wind was blowing so strong! After the game, we drove to Houston again for the last leg of our US trip. By this time we’d be flying back to the Philippines on that Delta flight back home. This is where the problem lies — going back home to a country that doesn’t work!

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