Margot O to Rama: Where’s your Fuente O master plan?

Cebu City Councilor Margot Osmeña is challenging Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama to produce his master plan for his new design for the Fuente Osmeña Circle.

Osmeña made her dare after Rama announced his plan to redesign Fuente Osmeña and make it look like the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees in Paris, France.

“Where did he get that idea to make it look like Paris? Fuente Osmeña circle is an important landmark in Cebu City. I want to ask him, where is the master plan? Show us your master plan first,” said Osmeña.

The councilor assailed the mayor’s plan saying it would only be a waste of a plan by the Lhuilliers to rehabilitate the Fuente Osmeña circle.

Osmeña was referring to the Lhuillier and City government’s agreement during former mayor Tomas Osmeña’s term to rehabilitate the Fuente Osmeña circle at a cost of at least P20 million.

Rama earlier said he plans to remove the fence of the Fuente Osmeña circle and expand it to accommodate a pedestrian walkway.

Rama said he wanted the area to look like Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees in Paris, France where people would have a huge circle to walk on.

“I want the parks and playgrounds (commission) and our architects to redesign it and give us a better picture (of the Fuente Osmeña circle),” he said.

Osmeña also said Rama’s plan would make Cebu City lose one of its most important landmarks and maybe the identity of its people.

She said making Fuente Osmeña look like the Arc de Triomphe would make the area look “funny.”

She said Fuente Osmeña circle was established during the American era to add beauty to the design of the nearby Capitol building.

She said Architect Melva Java had come up with a design on the proposed rehabilitation of Fuente Osmeña circle.

Osmeña cited the efforts of the Beautiful Cebu group in rehabilitating Osmeña Boulevard from the Capitol area to Sanciangko Street with Spanish-era brick sidewalks and colonial lamps.

Now, Mayor Rama wanted a French touch on the Fuente Osmeña circle.

Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young, for his part, said it’s a waste of time to react to this new pronouncement, something which he was certain that Rama would not be able to implement.

“Talk is cheap and it’s always easy to talk about things he (Rama) can never do. But I wish him well,” Young said.

Rama also said he wanted to introduce a “paradigm shift” in addressing the city’s traffic concerns especially in the Fuente Osmeña area.

Rama’s ‘paradigm shift’ would include banning passenger jeepneys from plying the Fuente Osmeña circle.

He said Fuente Osmeña circle was becoming very congested.

“I wanted to repackage it in a way that no passenger jeepneys passes through the circle, but only private vehicles,” he said.

Sylvan Jakosalem, Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (Citom) chairman, said Rama’s plan could be implemented but it was still in the planning stage.

Jakosalem also clarified that in the plan the taxis would still be allowed to pass by the area but not the jeepneys.