A month-long experiment for Dumaguete’s new integrated bus terminal fizzled out after only ten days last Wednesday following the entry of Vice Mayor Alan Gel Cordova and the City Council into the picture.
In a privilege speech at the City Council, Cordova called for a stop to the dry run, saying it was illegal because the City was rerouting traffic through an unsigned resolution of the Traffic Management Council and without an Executive Order from the Office of the Mayor.
The City Council then passed a Resolution urging Mayor Sagarbarria to stop the dry run.
Sagarbarria, for his part, maintained that the City had nothing to do with the dry run because it was a result of the Memorandum of Agreement entered into by private parties.
He explained that on their own, the presidents of 15 multicab drivers and operators groups made an agreement with Robinsons Land Corporation and Negros Oriental Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Edward Du that they were ready and willing to conduct a dry run for the P20 million Integrated Passenger Terminal behind Robinson’s Dumaguete Place.
The presidents of the 15 drivers’ groups formed a federation known as the Federation of Negros Oriental Drivers and Operators Association Inc. (FEDENDOA) and entered into a MOA last July, with Mayor Sagarbarria and LTO Dumaguete Chief Roland Ramos signing as witnesses.
“It’s a private contract,” Sagarbarria said. He said he would rather hear from the parties to the contract about their experience during the dry run, and not just “the views of one person,” apparently referring to Cordova.
While acknowledging that the contract was entered into by private parties, Cordova said he was questioning the City’s involvement in rerouting traffic without the involvement of the City Council.
He said the old law authorizing the Mayor to adjust the City’s traffic flow is applicable only to funerals and parades.
Cordova said that the City Council is mandated by the Local Government Code to regulate traffic. “The Traffic Management Council needs to make a serious study about traffic rerouting. If the measure will pass by the city council, the TMC should present the serious statistical survey and analysis.”
Meanwhile, businessman Edward Du lamented the impasse, which he said resulted from the entry of politics into the picture.
“It’s unfortunate that this had to happen at a time when elections are just around the corner, and after the jeepney drivers and operators convinced the Robinsons Land Corporation to put up the integrated passenger terminal at the cost of P20 million,” Du said.
He said he fears that this would send the wrong message to the private sector who only tried to help the City in restoring order in the City’s streets. “We are again headed back to the days when passenger terminals of these public utility vehicles were out in the streets.
They City passed an Ordinance mandating the setting up of an integrated bus terminal in barangay Bagacay in 2001 but this was met with violent objections by jeepney drivers and operators. At the height of their protests, they even overturned a vehicle of the Traffic Management Office that was sent to enforce the law.
City Legal Officer Neil Ray Lagahit reminded the public in a radio address that the reason for the objection to the Bagacay terminal was that the law was implemented without the benefit of a dry run.
