So, toward the end of this year, ten buses are expected to be operationalized under the Davao Interim Bus Service (DIBS). Supposedly, the DIBS buses will help address the need for more public utility vehicles in the routes of the city affected by heavy traffic.
In other words, while waiting for approval by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) for the definite routes, the ten vehicles acquired by the city from China, the DIBS will instead add more to the existing utility vehicles fielded under the Peak Hour Augmentation Bus Service.
What is really the problem that Davao City is facing and wants to be solved? Is it the continuously increasing vehicular traffic congestion? Or is it the lack of public transportation resulting in the inability of the transport system to accommodate passengers going to their respective destinations in the city and back to their residences?
From the looks of it, adding the ten units of buses to the existing vehicles currently in use under the Peak Hour Augmentation Transport Service, it is the lack of public transportation that is sought to be addressed.
Even the desire of the city to get approval from the LTFRB for the routes the DIBS buses will service is a clear indication that there is really a big lack of public transportation to and from certain areas in the city.
Honestly, we have no doubt that the DIBS vehicles will effectively address the problem of transportation lack. At the same time, however, the new buses, and perhaps the others that will arrive after the initial ten units are delivered, will definitely add to the vehicular congestion in the city’s primary routes leading to the city center and back.
It is our take, though, that once the permanent routes for the DIBS are approved by the LTFRB, those who will be tasked to manage the transportation project of the city will be able to establish a workable scheme that will result in the dismantling of the humongous vehicular traffic in the most widely used roads.
Say the DIBS bosses can set up bus stops where passengers from this or that place can disembark and take another vehicle towards their final destinations in the city proper. The public transport vehicles that will pick up the disembarking passengers from the DIBS units will be the auto calesa (AC) types, the routes of which are mostly circling the city’s downtown areas.
The DIBS management shall also see to it that the locations of the bus stops for loading and unloading passengers must be accessible through routes not passing the roads affected by the daily vehicular congestion.
We are certain that once this scheme we have in mind is adopted, both the problems of lack of public utility vehicles and the burgeoning vehicular traffic can be simultaneously addressed. It would be like shooting and killing two birds with one stone (or bullet if you want it).
*******************************
Oh, this one gives Davao City the (dis)honor of having the incident as its first.
If such a resolution can persuade the ICC to fast-track the trial, then the former President’s homecoming with clean hands can be certain.
Yes, we are referring to a news report that a 19-year-old woman attempted to rob a taxi driver. In other words, the crime of robbing taxi drivers is no longer a monopoly of male perpetrators. The incident last Wednesday on a secluded road in Dumanlas, Buhangin, Davao City broke that notion.
And indeed, the lady hold-up suspect appeared to be more daring. What with her use of only a kitchen knife in threatening a 46-year-old male driver. Perhaps, had she used a handgun, she could have succeeded in her intention.
Anyhow, we should not immediately judge the suspect as a true disgrace to her kind. Maybe there were certain circumstances that led her to decide on trying to commit the criminal act. And until press time, nowhere in the police report can one find a reason or alibi given by the suspected woman hold-upper for her illegal act.
Will the driver victim push in filing attempted robbery charges against the suspect? We have no idea. But perhaps, once the woman can satisfactorily explain why she did the unthinkable, the victim might have a second thought.
But whatever the final disposition of the taxi hold-up case, the incident indeed is the first for Davao City, one of the safest cities in the whole of the Philippines.
*****************************
So the Senate, through the initiative of Sen Alan Peter Cayetano, is contemplating passing a resolution addressed to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to have former President Rodrigo Duterte placed under “house arrest.”
Simply put, the Cayetano resolution will ask the ICC to let the Davaoeno former Philippine President come home and authorize his detention in his own house. Who would the senator from Taguig want to implement the house arrest – the Philippine National Police?
Or would his resolution include the authorization of ICC personnel to come to Davao City and serve as guards to the former President? And if it is so provided in the resolution, will Cayetano also make sure that the ICC pays for the expenses of its men who will come to the Philippines to make sure the “detainee” former President will not escape?
Was the Senator on his right senses when he thought of introducing the proposed resolution?
Our take on this issue is that it would be better for the lawmakers working for the release of the Davaoeno national leader to pass a resolution demanding that the ICC hasten the deliberation of the case against the former President. After all, they seem to be dead certain that the crime against humanity case FPRRD is facing at the ICC is wanting in evidence.
If such a resolution can persuade the ICC to fast-track the trial, then the former President’s homecoming with clean hands can be certain.
