Protesting sugar planters should've lobbied in congress

“That’s what mayors do. They lobby Congress to provide resources for their city.” Maxine Waters

By Alex P. Vidal

TRAFFIC gridlock is worsening in the Bonifacio Drive, City Proper due to the on-going road-widening construction project of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) from the foot of Forbes Bridge (the bridge that connects Iloilo City Proper to the districts of La Paz and Jaro across the Iloilo River).

Because it is a main street used by motorists going to the districts of La Paz and Jaro and those going to the City Proper, the gridlock results in monstrous traffic in the adjoining Gen. Luna and Iznart Streets.

Vehicles stopped on the bridge causing heavy inconvenience on the riding public.

Because they are late in their offices, schools and other transactions, programs and activities, people who take the Jaro Liko, Jaro CPU and La Paz passenger jeeps and cabs curse the city hall, the DPWH, including President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

They also use expletives to describe their harrowing ordeal in the traffic.

And nobody disagrees with them.

The city’s traffic management should do something to solve the problem as soon as possible.

-o0o-

WHERE was the Jalasig Sugarcane Planters Association, a group composed of sugar industry leaders in central Iloilo, when congress was deliberating the Senate Bill No. 2400 or the Sugarcane Industry Development Act, which sought to make the sugarcane industry more competitive by consolidating small farms?

The measure also reiterated the exemption of refined sugar for export from value-added tax (VAT).

It sought to prepare the country’s industry for integration with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economic community by the end of 2015.

The Iloilo sugar planters should have fought tongs and hammer during the committee deliberations to also exempt raw sugar from 12 percent VAT.

Their chances to be heard were great.

The measure was known in the Lower House as House Bill no. 4633, and one of the measure’s authors was Rep. Sharon Garin (AAMBIS-OWA party-list).

With some 40,000 members, Jalasig Sugarcane Planters Association, is a force to reckon with in the industry.

ILONGGO

Garin and another Ilonggo Rep. Alfredo Abelardo Benitez (Negros Occidental, third district) would have given weight to their representation.  

The measure sought to consolidate farms smaller than five hectares into blocks to make management “more professionalized” and ensure better delivery of assistance.

It would institutionalize the Sugar Regulatory Administration’s (SRA) Block Farming Program, explained Senate agriculture committee chair Cynthia A. Villar.

In their rally in Zarraga, Iloilo on March 25, sugarcane farmers asked President Aquino and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Kim Henares to scrap the 12 percent VAT on raw sugar.

The government requires sugar cane planters to pay in advance the 12 percent VAT before the commodities are removed from refineries and distributed to customers.

No probe, no justice for substandard traffic lights

“Money and corruption are ruining the land, crooked politicians betray the working man, pocketing the profits and treating us like sheep, and we're tired of hearing promises that we know they'll never keep.” Ray Davies

By Alex P. Vidal

Until now, corrupt officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) were never investigated by the Office of the Ombudsman for the installation of suspected substandard traffic lights in Iloilo City during the term of the late former mayor Rodolfo T. Ganzon.

When traffic was starting to become a hassle to pedestrians and was giving inconvenience to the public some 24 years ago, authorities put up traffic lights in the metropolis’ main intersections reportedly for a whooping budget of P10 million.

They looked impressive in the first five months. On the sixth month and thereafter, most of the units were no longer operational. They became junks. Efforts to repair or replace them proved futile, and the useless hanging hard wares became eye sores and sources of public outrage and displeasure.

To show their disgust and disappointment, naughty characters vandalized some of the units during night time.

BLAME

When we asked Ganzon about the issue in the Kapehan sa Budyong on IBC-12, a morning TV program hosted by Leo Dumagat at the Igmaan Hall in Hotel del Rio, the mayor blamed the DPWH when procurement of heavy equipment, among other infra projects and supplies, was not yet devolved to the local government.

When Mayor Mansueto “Mansing” Malabor took over city hall in the 90s, he was bedeviled by the same issue; but like his predecessor, Malabor, a lawyer, also pointed an accusing finger to the DPWH and invoked the local government code saying as a local chief executive, he has nothing to do whatsoever with the project.

During a trip in Cebu city sometime in 1991, we met then DPWH-6 director Ernesto Silvela in Lapu-Lapu City, where he resided, and asked him about the controversial traffic lights.   

He denied that the units were substandard as alleged by many pedestrians, but vowed to investigate the matter. He, too, had noticed that many traffic lights were not anymore functioning. Were they substandard? Silvela refused to comment.

“As long as I am the regional director (of the DPWH in Western Visayas), I will never allow any anomaly to take place under my administration,” Silvela said in Cebuano.

ASSIGN

Nothing was heard of about the issue ever since Silvela was assigned in Mindanao. Several DPWH contractors and employees reportedly petitioned for his ouster for being “too strict and too perfectionist.” Silvela fought shady characters in his office with tongs and hammer. But just the same, he was transferred (not ousted).

When Rep. Jerry Trenas became mayor after Malabor, the issue on traffic lights remained mothballed. Traffic control was done manually by civilian traffic aides, whose job orders were created during the time of Ganzon. The city hall job hires managed and controlled traffic system in the busiest intersections. No more traffic lights.

It appears the issue was already forgotten and no investigation was ever conducted on the alleged substandard traffic lights.

In January this year, city hall announced the installation of 16 additional traffic light junctions in different areas of the city “in a move to help solve the burgeoning pedestrian and traffic problems in the metropolis.”

PRIVATE

With the help of a private corporation, Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog started the traffic lights project in October 2013 with four installations along corner Ledesma-Mabini street, Infante and Gen. Luna and at the City Proper area.

Mabilog vowed to install four more traffic lights along Jalandoni-Delgado, in front of the University of San Agustin, corner Delgado-Valeria streets and at Huervana, La Paz district, which was completed early in 2014.

City hall said the budget for the project came from the P15 million funds diverted from the “not-so-feasible” fountain project at Plaza Libertad.

More traffic lights would be installed along the widened Diversion Road going to the international airport in Cabatuan, Iloilo to be supervised by the DPWH, it was reported.