Blogista
By Cha Monforte
Lowly tricycle driver Geraclio Awitin (gee, it’s not only PGMA who could single out an example) has made points in justifying that the latest fare increase approved by the City Council is just proper and fitting. It’s not the camel’s back that he broke for this pyrrhic victory of his tricycle driving sector. Rather, it’s the daily backbreaking livelihood of tricycle driving which has allowed him to see the city’s spaces, skylines and limits.
He said that the city has actually a “wide terrain” sewed by lengthy streets and roads. “Hey, look the palengke and terminal are so far from the downtown area,” he gushed. I easily understood his point- that the length between the people’s source of food and entry and exit point and the central business district (CBD) and the government center is one big gas guzzler and it was not the current Mayor Rey Chiong Uy but ex-Mayor Baby Suaybaguio who set this so wide apart.
It was a policy and an executive privilege (just to borrow the gung-ho words from SSS chair Romulo Neri) of the Suaybaguio administration that has screwed down a wide urban sprawl that is now showing cost ineffectiveness and inefficiencies of the city’s spaces. If only today’s Trade Center had remained as a flea market the supply of basic goods and food could have still been walkable in near distance from central employment areas. It matters now to see downtown employees and workers taking one more ride to the public market after the 5:00 P.M. siren to buy the lacking foodstuff they need before finally proceeding home. There’s cost ineffectiveness in this.
From all indications, the passenger tricycles have only been subsidized by this latest fare increase owing to the wide urban sprawl intentioned mindlessly in the past and which is now a costly reality to the city’s residents. The Trade Center has a centrally strategic space, not to mention its skyline, where even a flea market public could be wholesomely integrated to jibe with the commercial, institutional and religious blocks including the public plazas.
Iligan City has its own downtown Palao firmly planted on the ground while Cagayan de Oro City had its downtown Cogon market not relocated but modernized onsite sometime a decade ago. The City of Golden Friendship was only becoming proactive to its urbanization trends that it just created a new public market, the known Agora and refurbished through build-operate-transfer scheme another old one at Carmen to service the new residential enclaves that sprouted later as the city’s urban sprawl crept outward to its wide size at present. The same is true to Davao City’s Agdao and Bankerohan markets. They’re still at least near if not walkable, although there’s more economies of scale in the Big City owing to its 1.2-million population that its fare increase only necessitated a minimum of P1 or P1.50 only.
But past ambition of creating a new wide Tagum quite ostensibly unmade the city’s spatial efficiency of putting up the flea market at the CBD criss-crossed by a gridiron street system that was not yet lengthy until Totit-market-slaughterhouse complex rose up. Such closeness and efficiency were obviously well reckoned by the city’s founding fathers. The trend in Europe now in urban design is towards making walkable environment in old cities and creating walkable cities for new ones. That is for efficiency and environment-friendly purposes: for people to live not far to the establishments they need so they could just walk, ride a bike and save and do away with their automobiles that not only consume a high-priced gasoline and crude but also contribute to global warming.
BLOGBUZZ: Montevista Mayor Teofista “Pistay” Jauod is reportedly ill of a debilitating disease. We’ll pray for the mayor’s health and recovery…. We don’t know why Dawn Zulueta, better half of DavNor 2nd District Cong. Anton Lagdameo refused to walk down the red carpet during the Monday’s SONA. We missed our handsome Cong. Anton with her beauteous Dawn on TV…. Maybe Dawn is media-shy when it comes to mingling with top politicians…. Rumors flew thick over the weekend that the much-ballyhooed political unity in Comval has been broken up with the reported support of provincial elder Pros Amatong to a long-time friend and political ally Dr. Antonio Sebumpan of Maco and the reported support of Gob. Chiongkee Uy to Raoul Sarenas, a kin of Pantukan Mayor Celso “Tok” Sarenas for the election of the Daneco board member’s slot in coastal Comval. We’re still verifying this yet after the doctor won…. Mayor Sarenas had reportedly an earlier falling out with Amatong, who wanted the SK Fed boardmember to come from Mabini for having no boardmember at Comval SP at present. In the end, Sarenas son become the SK Fed prexy. There’s already wrangling in their unified ranks…. Maybe the potshot of the provincial elder Amatong during the last turnover of Lakas provincial chairmanship is a first smoke of a fire within. It was Amatong’s exhortation to protect the political unity that would be threatened by intrigues coming from among themselves…. It’s good that someone has realized that intrigues come from among politicians and not from the media, which just report what the politicians have done, what they are doing and what they will be doing. We do not create the news, it’s you who make the news which we cover in tail.… In Sebumpan’s case, the old man is still much calling the shots and proving he’s no lameduck unlike Joecab who is also now outside the government….. But the provincial elderly has to relinquish his provincial chairmanship of Lakas to Gob. Chiongkee or possibly have his unprecedented undefeated electoral record for almost 4 decades tarnished by the smallest party elections. (For online edition, visit my blog at: http://cha4t.wordpress.com)
Filed under: pros amatong, compostela valley, comval, davao del nrote, tagum
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