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Egay Uy . 

DURING one recent flag raising ceremony at City Hall, I had separate brief discussions with Mr. Doy Ramiro and Ms. Sharon Mangahas, both of the RTA Administrative Division.  We talked about programs of their division that are aimed at uplifting the department and improving its services to the community.

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When I was with the traffic office, I recruited Doy some three years ago, but his commitments to his private employer prevented him from joining me immediately.  Unfortunately, when he had the opportunity to do so, Mayor Moreno reshuffled office leaderships and I was re-assigned to the regulatory compliance functions of the city government.  Our partnership with Doy could have made effective and meaningful reforms.  But it was not meant to be.

Shawee, on the other hand, used to be a mainstay in the city government’s personnel office. She was moved to the traffic office to help in the rehabilitation of that office. With the Doy-Shawee tandem, I am positive they can come up with a stronger traffic office. This is highly doable even as the organic leadership of that office may choose to be indifferent to the desired changes.

Traffic woes are here to stay, there is no question about that.  Even the highly capable cities in the country experience traffic problems. While some have their solutions in place, some others are still putting theirs on stream. Cagayan de Oro is not an exception.

As I have mentioned before, a weak organization cannot perform its functions effectively. The organization has to be equipped with the right tools. Its manpower complement has to be made competent to pursue the organization’s mandate.

While this is not yet the case of the traffic office, Doy and Shawee are in the right track.  Without the attainment of what they aim to do, the traffic office will always find ways to rationalize failures and veiled incompetence.  The traffic office needs more people who make the job and ship out those who are made by the job.

The organic leadership of the traffic office has to reflect – “are we doing justice to taxpayers’ money – our salaries?”  I once told the organic assistant head to do exactly that when he continued to fall short of expectations despite clear directions set and agreed upon.  Today, I can only hope he is already doing that. Although hopeful, I still doubt it.

That brings to mind what I found way back then. There are overworked but underpaid organic and detailed employees. The irony is that there may be more overpaid but underworked employees in the organization. The challenge therefore rests on the shoulder of the organization’s organic head or assistant head to equitably allocate jobs and tasks, if he knows how to do it.  And since it appears he doesn’t, this will be attained through Doy and Shawee.

Such a move will however fail if the head himself or herself continues to practice favoritism in his office, favoring of course his “partners in crime” and those with whom he has had “panagsamahan” such as at least one confessed “boy kotong” who again found his way donning the traffic enforcer’s uniform.

Unless the organic head shapes up, traffic condition will always send the same signal – ship him out!

(Egay Uy is a lawyer. He chairs the City’s Regulatory and Complaint Board, co-chairs with the city mayor the City Price Coordinating Council, and chairs the city’s Joint Inspection Team.  He retired as a vice president of Cepalco.)

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