Who and what killed Manduro?

Herbie Gomez .

THE drivers of Cagayan de Oro are getting sick and tired of the b^!!s#!+ of people in government who are supposed to be ensuring the smooth flow of vehicular traffic and guaranteeing the safety of motorists and pedestrians.

A crane truck conked in the middle of the highway near Citi Hardware in Gusa. It stood still, untouched and unmoved, from Tuesday to Friday. Three freakin’ days.

It wasn’t difficult to see that the crane truck obstructed the vehicular flow and that it posed as a major traffic hazard. Everyone who passed that section of the highway saw it — except Nonito Oclarit, the chief of city hall’s Roads and Traffic Administration (RTA).

Engr. Oclarit wants us to buy his story that he learned that there was a massive 12-wheeler that stalled there for days only on Friday morning, following the accident that claimed the life of government engineer Ifour Manduro. Oclarit said that when he found out, he quickly sent traffic aides to avoid a repeat of the tragic accident that took place over an hour after midnight that same day. Oclarit said the RTA men did not leave the area until the owner of the crane truck, the construction firm Makati Development Corp., towed it away on Friday night.

So are we supposed to thank the RTA now for sending traffic aides to cordon off the scene of the accident until it was cleared on Friday night?

Saba diha!

What cannot be swept under the rug is that RTA’s inaction on Tuesday until Friday morning cost a man his life. The thought that a driver had to be pinned to death first before RTA decided to act on a problem is something really disturbing.

If Oclarit was a city police chief, a bomb would have gone off in a crowded mall first before he even realizes that there was a credible threat of a terrorist attack. Based on his own pronouncements, it looks to me like Oclarit doesn’t even know the traffic situation beyond a radius of three kilometers from city hall. For how could Oclarit, Cagayan de Oro’s top traffic aide, miss that massive 12-wheel monster truck in the middle of the highway in Gusa if the RTA was doing the rounds away from the Divisoria area? But the RTA is not functioning or is even “nonexistent” in Gusa just as it is nonexistent in Lapasan to Bugo, including the entire stretch of the JR Borja road extension, and Kauswagan, Patag, Bulua up to Iponan. The RTA’s presence is only felt in some portions of Don Apolinar Velez St., parts of Osmeña, Corrales, Hayes and Capistrano streets near city hall, Divisoria and its adjacent areas like these are the only areas in Cagayan de Oro where there are cars.

Even with the stalled crane truck in the middle of the highway gone, more accidents are waiting to happen in Gusa because the RTA has long been turning a blind eye to the barangay’s worsening problem on parked trucks.

As I write this, there are gargantuan machines, some 18-wheelers, parked on both sides of the highway in front of my workplace. RTA, the Land Transportation Office (LTO), the National Police’s Highway Patrol Group and the barangay chairman of Gusa, Marlo Tabac, have been asked to do something but none of them have really lifted a finger to put an end to this road madness. If something was done, it was merely to treat the violators with kid gloves.

Exactly the same thing is happening at the Bayabas-Kauswagan-Bulua stretch of the coastal road all the way to the neighboring town of Opol in Misamis Oriental where all the ingredients for fatal vehicular accidents are present. Until now, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has not provided the necessary street lights on that road that has been turned into a parking lot by monster trucks. Aggravating the problem are the potholes that have started to mushroom on certain sections of the coastal road that DPWH seems to be ignoring.

If the DPWH funds for the street lights and repairs were stolen, I think the local executives — mayors Oscar Moreno of Cagayan de Oro and Maximiano Seno of Opol town, and Gov. Yevgeny Vincente Emano — should take it upon themselves to do something. They were elected and given the responsibility to protect life and property. And so, if the DPWH won’t or cannot deliver, then the local governments have to step in and find a way. They have to. The local officials have to find a way to make sure none of their constituents would get killed on that dangerous coastal road.

As for the death of Engr. Manduro, I can only hope that Oclarit and his people in the RTA can sleep at night knowing full well that they could have saved the man’s life. Their disregard for public safety, their oversight or neglectfulness, nonperformance and inaction killed Manduro. Pastilan.