Proper conditions

Ian Alfredo Magno

OPOL, Misamis Oriental–The bridge has been under construction for practically two years already.  A portion of the piled dump, which serves as the foundation thereof collapsed days ago.  And the rest was a total nightmare and what seemed like an eternal display of idle vehicular traffic.  Motorists, passengers, travelers and those who simply wanted to go home from school or work endured a minimum of six-hour hellish traffic.

That particular state of affairs at the Laguindingan-Cagayan de Oro route spoke volumes, rather obviously, of what is to come sooner than later to Cagayan de Oro City and its neighboring towns (Metro Cagayan as anticipated), in the guise of progress.

Apparently, that highway strip otherwise referred to as the Cagayan de Oro-Iligan Corridor, which links Cagayan de Oro City and Iligan City to the Laguindingan Airport might soon become the Edsa of the south insofar as the latter’s reputation for traffic jams is involved.

The say, “If we keep doing the same thing, we keep getting the same results.”  The dire state of road congestion, among others, in the country’s capital city ought to have conveyed a lesson or two on what to do and what not, with regards to setting the proper conditions for a budding metropolis.

The course of action?

Sadly, “preparation” is somewhat a sugar-coated term and quite inappropriate at this time of the day.  Rather, “keeping up” is the more administratively correct phrase. It’s more like it. That bridge in Opol, Misamis Oriental should have been completed by now, in fact, even way earlier supposedly. Hence, for the record, such slack just could not keep up with the escalating pace of goings-on around the strip.

It looks like that the constituency is getting caught in a limbo where progress is ironically stagnating the very effects of progress itself. Or is it because of utter inefficiency that holds matters from keeping up with the pace? Indeed, if we keep doing things without any sense of urgency, we keep getting the same dilatory results.

It has to get better than that.

Nonetheless, the Opol bridge predicament was a revelation of sorts. The sheer number of commuters, passersby and motorists proceeding in and out of the city, points to tell-tale signs of what to expect henceforth more or less and, thus, keep up with.  Some of which may be:

• Increased transients indicating an artificial increase in daytime population comprised mostly of commuters (which must be addressed with better pedestrian facilities via loading/unloading choke-points, and pedestrian overpass to emphasize safety. One could just visualize the lengthy day-to-day queues of commuters in Metro Manila rushing to get a jeepney ride);
• Increased civilian activity (which must be complemented with enhanced police visibility via a relatively increased deployment of police force; and better nighttime street lighting);
• Increased urban waste and garbage (which must be addressed with intensified and extensive garbage management /collection efforts);
• Increased business activity (which must be complemented with faster and more responsive frontline government services and streamlined local registration/renewal procedures);
• Increased urban pollution brought by increased road activity (nothing can best address this than putting/deploying trees as part of the urban infrastructure); and
• Of course, increased road traffic (which prefers to have wider inoads and alternative routes).

These are but a few of what the city of Golden Friendship (or the larger Metro Cagayan) has to keep up with.  While progress begets progress, it nevertheless requires certain conditions to be put in place for people living in it to fairly adapt to the changing demands.

(Ian Alfredo T. Magno is a lawyer based in Cagayan de Oro. E-mail: ianalfredom@gmail.com)