So the new Honda Civic is coming
Atty. Jerome G. Neri
The Scrutineer
HONDA has announced the coming of the all new Honda Civic and are proudly introducing the turbo variant. This got a lot of Honda fans excited as they thought that finally Honda is bringing back a high performance Civic in the Philippine Market. The last time Honda sold a high-performance Civic in the local market was in 1999, which was the SIR.
Unfortunately, the Honda fans will be disappointed. The Turbo variant is a 1.5 liter turbo that will be producing well below 200hp in a Civic that weighs close to 1.5 tons. This will be a comfortable city sedan and not a high-performance one. The new turbo Civic will be an economical car with its small displacement forced induction engine.
In the recently concluded drag race, 90 percent or more of the entries were Honda Civics from the 1990s. This is how good the Honda Civics in the local market used to be. Until today, Honda has not given us a successor to the 90s Civics in the local market, such that you don’t see 2001 onward Honda Civics seriously participating in the drag races. I really want to see Honda Philippines bring the new Civic Type R to the Philippine market. I really hope they will as they have not given us a high-performance car in ages and its about time that they do.
Nissan, on the other hand, is going to bring into the local market their mighty R35 GTR. The GTR is a Japanese supercar and is one of the quickest accelerating production cars on the planet. I do not remember Nissan ever having sold any exciting car in the local market and now they are going to sell one of the most exciting cars money can buy.
GRAB AND UBER. I recently read a news article that the LTFRB suspended the operations of GrabBike, which is essentially a motorcycle taxi we know here locally as habalhabal. Since this service is online-based, LTFRB says it will be able to police GrabBike bike by using undercover agents, just the same way they got Uber before.
I believe it is correct for the LTFRB to go after GrabBike. The thing is why does the LTFRB not do anything about the habalhabal running around? They are practically unregulated and they are everywhere. The LTFRB would not need to do any undercover sting operation to apprehend them.
All they have to do is go to the corner of Opra, Beverly Hills and the bottom of Busay. There are hundreds of them there. A lot of these habalhabal riders are reckless and overload their motorcycles. There are more and more of these habalhabal drivers every day. Either government should regulate them with strict rules or stop their services. The way habalhabal operations are going is unacceptable.
BRT. Bad news. I just read that the Cebu Bus Rapid System plan has reached its final stage and construction of the project will soon begin. Right now our traffic is close to unbearable. When you put bus terminals in the middle of narrow streets, of course the result is congestion. I have been writing about this many times and it seems that nobody realizes how this plan will make Cebu the worst place to live in.
Cebuanos must oppose this plan. Some say at least there will be some sort of mass transportation in Cebu. Believe me when I say we will be better off without it. The BRT will take up space that is already being used and is at present congested, therefore, it will worsen the congestion. We need a mass transportation system that will be built and put on new space, thus the only way is to go either above ground or underground. Yes, it is expensive but there is no other way.
