Saboteurs

I was scanning the comments on a Face Book friend’s timeline after he declared his disgust over Bacolod City’s useless traffic lights when the commentary suddenly turned irrationally political and naturally got my attention. Everyone was complaining how embarrassing it was for the traffic lights of a city like Bacolod to be almost completely broken down, especially when they have visitors from other cities when one of the current administration’s fanatical defenders presented an interesting theory: He hypothesized that the traffic lights are broken because the previous administration somehow sabotaged those simple electronic devices to the point that the current administration is unable to muster the resources to repair them anymore.

As someone who has been bewailing the deplorable traffic light situation that the motorists of Bacolod are currently enduring, I found the theory to be quite interesting.

One primary theory behind the broken traffic lights is that the decision - makers in city hall don’t want to use them because they were either put up by the previous administration, or because they believe that hiring traffic enforcers are better than using traffic lights because the latter are machines that neither vote nor have families that vote. Another angle that has been considered is that the cost of repairing the defective traffic lights has not yet been decided on, probably because city hall and the contractor are having difficulty agreeing on how much such a simple job would eventually cost the city.

The sabotage theory makes an intriguing storyline because of the malice and pettiness involved, but if you come to really think of it, how hard is it to maintain a traffic light and how difficult is it to repair one that has been deliberately sabotaged? How complicated are the traffic lights of Bacolod anyway? Surely they can’t be more complicated than the traffic lights of Silay City that have the extra functionality of countdown timers but have been functioning perfectly for years. Traffic lights consist of a pole, a couple of lights, and a control panel. If one part gets damaged, it should be easily repairable and/or replaceable by any competent contractor or supplier. What is so wrong with the ones that Bacolod has that they cannot be repaired anymore?

An administration that would stoop to sabotaging traffic lights before turning them over would be a really stupid one because they would be giving their enemies a chance to make more money when they give the new guys a golden opportunity to declare something that is totally repairable as dilapidated and therefore in need of replacement. This is the storyline currently being peddled in the FB conversation I was following and I simply don’t see how someone can give his political enemies an easy project / source of kickbacks by sabotaging government property before they step down. If that was the case, then those saboteurs really deserve to be called stupid. The question in this case is: If sabotage was truly involved, then who is going to financially benefit from that dastardly act?

This sabotage theory is one reason why local governments should strive to properly maintain their facilities and equipment. The best way to sabotage the plans of any rival group set to replace an administration is to turn over everything in proper working order. That way the new group will have to come up with original projects and not just declare everything dilapidated and have an excuse to re-spend the people’s money on unnecessarily expensive repairs or the outright replacement of facilities and properties that are still functioning properly.

Think about it: if the new administration does nothing but tear down or replace everything the previous administration did, re-spending money that has already been spent, where does your city end up when their term ends? Does the city improve and achieve progress that way, or does it essentially start all over again?  

Instead of spending our limited resources on new traffic lights to replace “old” ones, on getting rid of a Northbound terminal or an existing slaughterhouse; why can’t the leaders of the city come up with their own projects that can complement the ones that have already been finished? More traffic lights or timers on existing traffic lights perhaps? How about a southbound terminal? Better flood control and prevention infrastructure? Do schools and health centers not need funding and improvement? Is Bacolod so progressive that there are no more new projects to be conceived?

back to top