Creating Cebu’s future

With the fast-changing landscape and rapid growth of Metro Cebu, it is time for us to pause and look around. Do we like what we see? Is it worth continuing? Can we not redirect it to some other end that we may consider more desirable? But how do we know if what we see is not the best thing for us? How do we know that following another road would bring us to what we think as the most desirable end? These are not easy to discern because many of us have different ideas about what we need to do to make Cebu a better place to live in.

We agree, for example, that traffic is horrendous in parts of the city at some point in time, but we could not agree whether the flyover or something else is the better answer to this problem. We also know that pumping more water from underground to meet our needs is not sustainable because of our dwindling aquifers but we don’t care as long we still have water flowing from our faucets today. We agree that we have to gather and dispose our garbage but not in my backyard, please. Drop it somewhere else.

But the most unfortunate thing is that for decades now Metro Cebu’s development has not been guided at all by any rationally prepared plan. Seven cities (to include the new cities of Naga and Carcar) and six municipalities now comprise Metro Cebu which has than two million people already in the last census in 2007. Each of these local government units care only for their own people and do not coordinate their activities or plans with the others. Yet they know that many of their own people depend on other places for their livelihood, education and health services, recreation and other related community, social and personal services.

It is not that we do not know the need for cooperation to solve our common problems. We know that and that is why we once had the Metro Cebu Land Use and Transport Study that looked into where we were in the ’70s and pointed out the direction that we had to follow during the lifetime of the plan from 1980 to 2000. Most of the key projects identified in the study were already implemented, but they were designed mainly to meet our needs up to 2000. We are in the 12th year since 2000 but until now no new study or plan has been made to serve as guide to Metro Cebu’s development in the new century.

Again, its time we pause. And pause we did indeed when we started asking why we had to build flyovers when many of us do not like them. We asked: should not a master land use and transport plan be made first to see if we really need these flyovers? What about mass transport? Should it be the BRT or LRT, we asked, or why not why not just maintain the present system? Too many questions need immediate answers.

Now thanks to the Mega Cebu Vision, we may just have the answers to these questions.  Hatched towards the end of last year by members of the private sector in  the newly created Metro Cebu Development Coordination Board, the Mega Cebu Vision takes Metro Cebu as a city-region that will be planned and developed as one. In rethinking Metro Cebu as a city–region, the member cities and municipalities of Metro Cebu will maintain their own geo-political integrity but collaborate with each other and as a whole, acknowledge the importance of shared vision and value the process of strategic thinking and integrated development planning.

Rethinking Metro Cebu as city-region ensures sustainability by adopting the principle and framework of economic prosperity, livability, social equity and inclusion and ecological integrity. It recognizes that the physical form and structure of the city-region are vital elements for its competitiveness, social cohesion and environmental sustainability; that city-regions are key drivers for the emerging global knowledge economy; that it increasingly drives regional and, by implication, national economic performance.

Backed by the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc., the Mega Cebu Vision is now hard at work. Just this week, a five-day Sustainable City Dialogue unfolded that saw the visit of two internationally renowned speakers who served as main discussants in the persons of architect Senen A. Antonio, an urban design and planning expert based in the United States; and Dr. AbdouMaliq Simone, an urbanist and professor of sociology at Goldsmith College, University of London.

The Dialogue brought together government officials and representatives from different sectors in Metro Cebu who listened to the presentations of the experts and participated in the discussion involving many issues affecting the life and welfare of all the people living in Metro Cebu. The weeklong event included a one-day training-seminar on “Sprawl Repair and Smart Growth” and “Charrette Methodology and Scenario Planning,” roundtable discussions on infrastructure planning and new urbanism, including a public forum where many more sectors in the metro were represented.

It may not be clear what the final outcome of the dialogue will be, like the hatching of the new master plan for Cebu, for example, but what was clearly shown so far was that when properly led and motivated, the people of Metro Cebu can come together, talk and listen to one another in a constructive dialogue to understand better our problems and needs and find solutions to them in a cooperative manner.