Old Gaisano store still a favorite; ah, yes, traffic congestion again, ahead

By CHITO DELA TORRE
December 5, 2008

Gaisano Tacloban will remain at the Tacloban Shopping Center.  It will continue to operate.  It won’t close.  It won’t close just because Gaisano Central is now open.  In fact, it has more better items for sale now.  Some of its newest items are not available in other stores in the city.  Its ambience is more inviting these days.  It will continue with additional improvements.

These are the popular beliefs of the regular customers of the old Gaisano.  These customers, although having already gone once or twice, or more, to Gaisano Central, which is only about 150 meters away to the southeast along the same street (Justice Romualdez) where Gaisano Tacloban stands, keep going to their old favorite mini-mall department store.   On evenings, I see them – many of them my friends and relatives – there walking up and down the two staircases and shopping in Gaisano Tacloban’s 39 display sections, buying everything that their available money can buy: grocery merchandise, beauty items, Christmas season picks, clothing and textile, snack items, drinks and cigarettes, compact and digital video discs, photographic films, shoes, bags, belts, hats, school and office supplies, toys, baby’s items, kitchenware, electrical items, carpentry and masonry tools, sports items, plastic flowers and plants, ornamental accessories, housing and bedroom furnishings, toiletries, and many more.

There is no escalator, not even elevator, at the old favorite store, but they keep going there, from as early as when it opens, until it closes.  During the last midnight sale, the store was almost fully congested.  The congestion is actually a normal sight and event even on regular business hours and days.  That’s the old Gaisano – truly, a favorite place to go, shop and buy at, by my three lovely girlie granddaughters, and my family, and, yes!, your own family!

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Tacloban’s traffic officers should make a fast implementable study and take action on the congestion problem that developed at Justice Romualdez, between the southeastern side of M.H. del Pilar and towards the main road artery’s corners at Sen. Enage-Salazar streets since the Gaisano Central opened business. The congestion is remarkable starting at 5 p.m.  No, the Gaisano Central is not its direct cause. If it is, it will be insanity to remove the mall or close it to the public.  Crazy.

Of course, it is understandable that there are two traffic lights systems between these two street intersections which keeps traffic stalled for brief moments.  Vehicles disgorging passengers at the Central’s front roadside are almost a bumper-to-bumper headache every 5 seconds as they also pick up passengers from among those coming out of the mall.  On late afternoons, the Romualdez roadside of that section near the Bank of Philippine Islands gets blocked by barbecue stands (about five, an observer remarked, have been added to the location?) and the pedestrian lane hardly gets cleared of pedestrians.

This snarl may require rerouting.

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The traffic light, many are saying, and I also say so, extremely needs resetting, and correcting, at the corners of Romualdez and M. H. Del Pilar, Enage and Salazar streets.  Why?

1. They post red (stop) light and puts a stop to both pedestrians and vehicles;

2. When the green (go) turn-right/turn-left arrow lights are on for vehicles but the  pedestrian green (walk) lights are on at the same time, vehicles turn right, or left, even when pedestrians are already crossing, thus pedestrians stop in the middle of the road to give way to those vehicles; and

3. There is not enough time for vehicles to run on green (go) signal at the same time that there is not enough time for pedestrians to complete their crossing walk.

Clearly, the traffic lights systems are now obviously defective in communicating to both vehicles and pedestrians.

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Ms. Estelita Deloria Balneg, retired district schools supervisor of Catarman, Northern Samar, will celebrate her 88th birthday come December 14.  Expected to join her many well-wishers at the Balneg residence in Catarman, apart from her sibling, nephews, and other kins, are her close first cousins who are living between 100 and 1,000 kilometers away to the north in Luzon, south to Samar, Leyte and Mindanao, and east to Taft in Eastern Samar.  Among them are Atty. Amado Baclea-an Deloria, former Commissioner of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board, his younger brother Leopoldo who works at the Supreme Court of the Philippines, and his younger sister Ana, as well as Nida who works at the Samar Provincial Hospital. The birthday celebrant frequented Basey, the hometown of her mom, Eleuteria Deloria, until she retired from the Department of Education, Culture and Sports more than two decades ago.  She was very close to my own mother.  When all shall be around her in Catarman on Dec. 14 (two Sundays from now), it will be a great, very memorable grand reunion.  I am sure, some of the children of Pedro Llego Deloria, who are in Catarman now or are near Catarman, will be going there, to partake of the blessings of the day with the oldest living scion of the very big Deloria clan.  My greetings in advance: Happy birthday, Mana Esteling!  May you live much longer, and may God the Almighty continue to shower His blessings on you!