By Leonardo Micua

 

WALK, don’t ride.

This may yet be the advice today for anyone to get past the vehicle gridlocks hugging our major and even interior roads now that contractors undertaking flood mitigation projects in Dagupan have accelerated the pace of their work so that they can beat the deadline imposed to them by the DPWH.

POSO, in a bid to untangle the gridlocks, diverted out-of-town passenger jeepneys to go through some interior and secondary routes and let only the jeepneys indigenous to the city and private vehicles pass through streets where the flood mitigation projects are currently undergoing full-blast construction.

It was an ingenious plan that somewhat minimized the bumper-to-bumper situation in most of our city roads. But I still believe that for one to get to his destination faster, he should better walk, since walking is good for the health.

Walking may be an ordeal but a better option for one to reach his destination, rather than sweating it out with fellow passengers inside crammed jeepneys that move literally inch by inch by the minute before they reach their destinations.

I’m no member of the Akarestas of UL President Chito Samson, but I began walking every time I report to the Punch from the time I alight from a jeepney from Bonuan. I took the cue from our colleague Eva Visperas who spent one hour driving her car from Perez Boulevard to the Punch office near Quintos Bridge on A.B. Fernandez Ave.

But lest I be misunderstood for making pun of the snail-paced traffic situation in many of our roads today, let me clarify that I am a no anti-progress but a firm believer of the cliche “no pain, no glory”. Believing that for today’s “pain,” “gain” is not far behind. I support the initiative being undertaken by DPWH on our major roads, using the funding allocated in the GAA of the previous years.

Didn’t some of our ancestors walk from their homes in the barrio to go to school in the Poblacion some kilometers away? Their sacrifices eventually paid off when they finished their schooling, and proceeded to have their college education for a good life for themselves and their families.

We have to walk when our motor vehicles ground to a halt once we are hit with a global fuel crisis because of wars in the Middle East, West Asia and in Eastern Europe.

The value of sacrifice should be uppermost in each of us. There is a need to further extend our patience till the “super, super elevation” (as what many bashers of these projects call it), are eventually completed.

On this, Mayor Belen told this writer and our colleagues from SMNI Radio and Aksyon Radyo Dagupan two weeks ago that she continuously receives bashing on social media over the ongoing DPWH projects when this was already a settled issue months before.

The anti-progress mentality of some people, and that includes the seven majority councilors in the Sanggunian,  who continue to rant even knowing that all these projects will finally be finished in two months.

Recall that the seven majority councilors passed a resolution that called on Mayor Fernandez to stop the anti-flooding projects, to justify their plan to discredit her administration.

But Mayor Belen was determined to cooperate with the DPWH and the contractors to eventually ease the sufferings of Dagupeños during rainy season and high tide.

Mayor Belen, in fact, already risked her political career when she ignored calls of some businessmen to stop these projects because of the disruption in their operations.  She knew the projects will benefit her more than 170,000 constituencies, and those of the complaining businessmen, for many years.

Knowing that these  projects will ease the flooding in Dagupan, there was no other way to do it but to make DPWH  do its manadated work. If she didn’t do it, she also knew that she will be blamed for the endless flooding if the elevation projects were not done today. #

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