Why the Philippines can’t be a 1st world nation

After the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) repaved many roads in Cebu City a year ago, it was time to repaint those street markings like  double yellow lines and proper road lanes and that’s exactly what DPWH contractors have been doing. But to the horror of the Cebu City Traffic Office (CCTO) officials, the newly painted road markings did not fit the previous road markings… like allowing for dedicated left-turning lanes. This has happened in almost all major streets and avenues in Cebu City.

The culprit? Apparently despite the invitation by CCTO officials for a coordination meeting, DPWH didn’t care to attend these meetings and went along its merry way repainting our roads to their own satisfaction. Why is this happening today? Thanks to the Aquino regime, they have completely thrown away whatever decentralization gains we had during the presidency of President Fidel V. Ramos. In the old days, we had the Regional Development Council (RDC-7) where national agencies like the DPWH or DOTC have to make quarterly reports to the RDC. Well, not anymore!

It is for this reason why I always get peeved when President Benigno Aquino III speaks of his reforms… wherein the last time during  the 41st Philippine Business Conference held at the Marriott Hotel in Pasay City, P-Noy said, “Even our harshest critics cannot deny that we have finished projects that have been promised for generations.” I do not believe that this is true! What finished project is he talking about huh?

P-Noy told the folks attending the Business Forum “The best is yet to come for the Philippines and that if his good governance policies are pursued, the Philippines would be nearing 1st world status. Then he highlighted what his government had done in infrastructure projects when he tripled its budget and said, “The numbers do not lie: under the daang matuwid (straight path) administration, the infrastructure budget has more than tripled. In 2010, we inherited an infrastructure budget of P165 million. This has increased to P570 billion in 2015.”

Maybe he poured this in Metro Manila, but certainly not in Cebu where we too need infrastructure development! Last Aug. 24 during the so-called “Gathering of Friends” at the Cebu Coliseum, P-Noy told Cebuanos that his government poured P23 billion in the last five years to Cebu. We checked this thoroughly from DPWH figures and we only saw a figure of P2.2 billion in rehabilitation projects in the last five years in Cebu.

While I do believe that “the best is still to come for the Philippines,” unfortunately for P-Noy it is not because of his six years as president. However this best could still come to us if we elect a progressive president in the coming 2016 presidential elections who would truly go out of his or her way to eradicate corruption and focus on improving the lives of the marginalized people who are caught in that vicious cycle of poverty.

In ending that speech, P-Noy said, “From 2010 to 2014, we increased our net foreign direct investments almost six-fold. We recorded the lowest unemployment rate in a decade. Above all, we have regained the respect of the international community – from being ‘The Sick Man of Asia’ to being ‘Asia’s New Darling.” Come now, how does P-Noy reconcile this talk in the banner headline of the Philippine STAR’s Business page last week which screamed, “Phl slips in WB rankings on doing business?” How shameful!

How can we even be approaching 1st world status when DPWH officials would not sit down with the local government to make sure that our road markings are done right? These are the reforms that many of us in Cebu believe are needed in this country.

It’s been five-years under the Aquino Regime and Cebu was supposed to have its first brand new mass transit system dubbed the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Five years later, we only saw drawings of this. Apparently because of certain bureaucratic intricacies, wherein the lead agency is handled by the DOTC