Congested City

Dumaguete has grown, like all other places. The most noticeable difference you'll see from the Dumaguete today from, say, 20 years ago, is the presence of so many vehicles.

The number of vehicles surged in the wake of all these “surplus importations,” a euphemism for smuggling, through the Cebu port. Proof of this is that almost every other vehicle you see running around Dumaguete streets is a converted right-hand-drive Suzuki, or the KIA, Hyundai, Nissan and what-have-you.

If all these vehicles take to the streets on a busy day, all drivers will notice that there is a dearth of parking spaces around town. The shortage of parking spaces is more felt around the market complex, which has been illegally converted by the City into terminals of tricycles and multicabs.

I say “illegally” because there is a City Ordinance that forbids the streets from being used as terminals. I believe that ordinance was even authored by three-time councilor Samuel Dicen.

I find it ironic now that Dicen tolerates the presence of these terminals in the city streets, now that he is the traffic czar of the City. By tolerating these terminals instead of compelling these drivers and operators to find their own in private properties, he himself is going against the very ordinance he authored.

Perhaps the City should decide to revisit that traffic ordinance and amend certain provisions to “surrender” to the mob of unruly tricycle drivers and operators because having the present situation exist side by side with the law makes for pure mockery of the system.

It's probably also time for the City to explore the real need to decongest by transferring the City Hall and other government offices out of the commercial center. The plan to move City Hall to Bajumpandan was one of the best ideas I've heard. There's nothing so sacred about City Hall that it should not be moved. We've seen new city halls rise in San Carlos City , Talisay City , Tagbilaran City and other progressive cities.

You may think that the proposed site of the government center in barangay Bajumpandan is so far away. Indeed, there's nothing much going on there right now. But nothing's going to happen unless someone starts it. And no one will start it without a vision.

My favorite anecdote for this situation is the line of a newly-elected councilor when asked how Dumaguete would be like in the next five years: “I don't know--my term is only good for three years.”

And indeed, three years it was. He was never reelected.*

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