Sitting on the job

Ben Contreras

THERE is a saying in Chinese that when you want to convince a man, don’t do it the belligerent way but in softly spoken words.

Take the case of the residents of an old apartment in China. Who would have thought that the world will find this old house still standing in the middle of the highway for a time? The Chinese government, as we know, can easily do what she wanted, including the strong arm way. In the end, the government got what it wanted the diplomatic way without further resistance.

One of the hottest issues as can be gleaned from local and social media is the property of Barangay 33 chairman Conrad Lim which many claim is hampering the completion of the coastal road project connecting Igpit to Gusa.

My first source of information comes from this paper. It was reported that this P4-billion 12.17-kilometer coastal road project started way back in 1997, the initial phase of which was a clearing operation that probably lasted for three years before the actual project could commence.

A few good questions raised need to be answered satisfactorily–like, if the clearing operation started in 1997, why was the Lim “property”not cleared and, was it developed before or after 1997. More questions: Why is the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) now asking the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) if Lim has permit from the Philippine Reclamation Administration only now?

The trouble with our government, national and local, is that when a problem is still small, nobody cares until it becomes big and unmanageable. A family occupies a vacant lot illegally. Nobody cares until the illegal occupants grow in number. When brought to the proper authorities, everyone washes their hands.

An undertaking like a reclamation is not accomplished overnight. It takes a long time and huge sums of money to do it, not to mention that when one is into it, the activity cannot be hidden from public eye. Hence, what have DPWH, EMB, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the city government been doing all these years? They didn’t know it was happening?

It could only mean two things. If they knew it and did nothing to stop it, then the reclamation must be legal. If not, then they were all sleeping on their job.

“Mayor Kuan” claims that he reprimanded Lim. Funny how the mayor used the “kuan” word making his statement so base coming from a high official like him.

“I tried to call Kuan to ask about his relation with Kuan and if it’s true he is now living with Kuan in a Kuan somewhere in Lumbia?” How about that?

So, Mayor Kuan blames Lim for our traffic woes. Yes, if it is removed, the coastal road project can now proceed and upon completion, could help ease our traffic woes. But to blame Lim for our traffic woes is baseless.

We’ve been complaining about our traffic even before Mr. Kuan sat as Mayor. After four years in office, what has Mayor Kuan done about the problem that is Mr. Lim? Did Mayor Kuan try to negotiate with Lim the way he did with Mr. James Giam? There is this rumor that Mayor Kuan didn’t get what he wanted and so now, he found a good excuse to get back at Lim on the traffic issue.

The traffic issue was so overblown that many are pointing their fingers at Lim, forgetting that SM CDO Downtown Premier just opened, and is aggravating our traffic situation.

It’s not difficult to see why we have heavy traffic. Go out there in the streets and highway. Chances are, you’ll find a long line of heavy trucks with container vans inching and competing with all types of vehicles for that non-changing size of road. What happened to the truck ban? It took Gov. Bambi Emano to ask this question.

Our editor ended his piece with a good point: if the property is owned by Lim, pay up and finish the project. Can it be resolved?