Reconciliation
needed for new order

Sunday, the Church celebrated its birthday more than 2,000 years go with the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles.

Pentecost is actually the day when Christ, who ascended to his Father in Heaven, breathed the Holy Spirit into his Apostles and told them the mission He entrusted to them – to baptize all nations on earth in the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Happy Birthday, Mother Church.

***

There is something definitely waffling in the land. The victors in the recent elections and the vanquished often have come out with the call for reconciliation promises to help one another to make a success of the commander’s three-year term.

Of course most of these are just motherhood statements. But I hope that the majority will bear them out with an honest attempt to help out the winners for their task without being hooted down or sabotaged.

Actually, the newcomers have so much to immediately register an impact on the public. Like, for example, in the case of Bacolod. Just a chance in the setup of the traffic enforcers will do wonders to clear the streets of the city of pasaway jeepneys and vehicles lined up along no parking areas in the streets.

Another, a lot of traffic signals can immediately be repaired and traffic flow eased in critical areas of the city that have been suffering congestion, and the overflow of vendors along the sidewalks of commercial centers can immediately be solved by political will. Imagine, the sidewalks along the Central Market now boasting only of pedestrians. So with the other side of the street. Department store owners need not wring their hands or resort to hiring vendors to compete with one another.

Yes, the Bacolod Public Plaza will now be restored to its previous beauty and the strollers can now rest there amid the trees and the plants for their afternoon paseo.

Strollers need not be afraid of being accosted by vendors or cajoled into buying from a row of ukay-ukay clothes which has their view of the other side of the plaza.

And for that matter, they will have access to hygienic and clean toilets in the plaza and also enjoy the view of the memorial to the Unknown Soldiers and Bacolod’s American Liberator.

Barkers are supposed to have been prohibited in the key areas of the city. For example Lopue’ East. Daily, morning and afternoon, we still see the barkers or passenger callers with their extortion on jeepney drivers while traffic enforcers just talk a few feet away. And not only there. There are also those barkers along Lopez–Jaena, Burgos, downtown Bacolod, and several other places where they are making a killing daily for themselves and their colleagues among the traffic enforcers.

And, yes, just for once, I could ask the Sangguniang Panglunsod to initiate an investigation into the city’s peace and order situation. Like, for example, with several city councilors residing there, how come that Barangay Montevista had to impose a curfew for minors and barangay visitors.

So also with the many areas of Capitol Subdivision where residents had to put up entrance guards by closing several other accessible areas making sure that have their own tanods.

It will take only political will to address the problem of the traffic in the city as well as the tendency by motorcyclists to violate the wearing of helmets. But nobody seems to be engaged in enforcing the ordinance.

It may take some time to solve the problem of illegal settlers buy they are not insurmountable. But one must have to politically will and the determination to address the problem.

So with the garbage problem of the city and the subdivisions. And, yes, the most important thing – pay the Lopez family what is due them for their garbage dump.*

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