Cebu City Councilor Joel Garganera is 100 percent correct.
The City Government has no business pursuing artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing opportunities until it can resolve pressing problems like garbage, flooding, water supply and electricity.
Perhaps he should add homelessness and mendicancy to that list, although I am pretty sure you can come up with many more concerns that need to be addressed.
Did someone say “traffic”?
I get it. The allure of our former colonial master’s international initiative to secure supply chains for computer chips, artificial intelligence (AI) and critical minerals must be irresistible to someone like Cebu City Mayor Nestor Archival, who happens to be an electrical engineer.
But let’s not fool ourselves. The end game of Pax Silica, or silica peace, is to strip China, our giant neighbor to the north that many local politicians love to demonize, of its techno-economic leverage and to anchor a competing economic security bloc.
In other words, Washington wants to hit the brakes on China’s massive global infrastructure and economic development strategy called the Belt and Road Initiative that the latter launched 13 years ago. To say that Beijing has done a lot in terms of cementing economic ties with many countries since then is an understatement. To assert that maybe Washington with its Pax Silica can play catch-up and maybe outplay Beijing in its own game may border on delusional.
But don’t take my word for it. I’m no political analyst, let alone an expert on geopolitics although I know a thing or two on the subject, and definitely more than your average Juan. I see myself as one of the two old men from The Muppet Show – albeit a much younger version -- who heckle from the balcony.
Then again, miracles do happen. Don’t they? It took nearly two decades for the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit to finally get off the ground. And look where we are now in 2026. Partial operations on a segregated corridor that runs from the Cebu South Bus Terminal along N. Bacalso Ave. to Fuente Osmeña. That’s a 2.38-kilometer stretch that many passengers can actually walk.
But where was I? Oh yes. Cebu City and its myriad of problems.
Let me start with what I experience every day to and from work. As you all know, I ditched driving and switched to walking since I moved to Sambag 1 eight or nine years ago because the latter is more practical – it’s just a 10-minute walk, tops – and healthier – many people who want a favor say I look younger than my actual age.
Along my route you find them, men and women who are down on their luck living on the sidewalks of P. del Rosario St. They beg there. They sleep there. They eat there. And they also go to the bathroom there.
Those who are fond of guessing games can have fun figuring out where that huge pile of identifiable matter that they accidentally stepped on came from.
This must be one of the raisons d’etre the Cebu City Anti-Mendicancy Office is seeking a new ordinance to legally prohibit sleeping and living on public sidewalks and streets.
And don’t get me started on traffic.
Even though I hardly drive anymore, when I do I instantly turn into Mr. Hyde, not because I have no conscience and I don’t feel any remorse for any cruel actions, which, by the way, I don’t, but because the traffic situation has gotten so out of hand only a monster can deal with it.
Okay, so I exaggerate. Maybe a tiny bit. But motorists who have no choice but to get behind the wheel every single day agree with me. Or maybe they don’t but for the sake of the point that I am trying to make here, let’s pretend they do.
Look at what has happened along the BanTal corridor after the Cebu City Transportation Office rolled out Oplan BanTal: Discipline Zone on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2026. It was forced to reverse its ban and allow motorcycles back onto the Foodland flyover the very next day.
Of course, I’ve gotten way ahead of myself.
Mayor Archival clarified in a Facebook post that he was not officially endorsing the Pax Silica project during his press conference on Monday, Aug. 3. He was actually talking about preparing Cebuanos for AI and digital skills development.
He also urged the public “to read his statements in full context and not rely solely on headlines or interpretations.”
Mayor Archival is also 100 percent correct.
How silly of Councilor Garganera and how silly of me to jump to conclusions. After all, since when did a Filipino politician rock step back, walk, walk and do a slight turn to the right to spin 180 degrees after Uncle Sam told him – or her – to do the hustle?