Cebu Youth Lead Road Revolution

Children, youth and civic leaders of a town in Bantayan Island, celebrated Earth Day
2016 in a most extraordinary way. Led by youth leaders Regine Ilustrisimo and Jay
Contento, the citizens filed a petition in the Municipal Council of Sta. Fe to divide all the
roads of the town by half: Half for motor vehicles, and half for proper walkways and
bikeways.
This legal petition filed in the Sangguniang Bayan council implements a law hardly
known. The law says that 50 voters of a barangay (village) or 100 voters of a
municipality can file a petition to directly propose an ordinance. The Peoples Initiative
Act gives the council concerned 30 days to approve the proposed ordinance, or else,
the citizens can petition the
COMELEC to call a
referendum.
Citizens and youth leaders
were assisted by the local
barangay officials, health
workers, womens groups,
and persons with disabilities
who marched from the town
plaza to Municipal Hall,
complete with a marching
band. What made the event
more significant was that
the children and citizens
were backed by a team of
Youth leader Regine Ilustrisimo, 12, together with the children of the town of Sta.
more than two dozen
Fe in Bantayan Island, Cebu shown here submitting a legal petition to Vice
lawyers from Luzon,
Mayor Celso Espinosa. The children, backed up by 25 top-caliber lawyers, are
Visayas, and Mindanao
asking the the local council to pass on ordinance to divide all the towns roads by
half: Half for motor vehicles and half for good sidewalks and safe bike lanes.
and from the world. While
the law only required 100
signatures of voters, the
children submitted a petition signed by more than 600 voters and 1,200 children and
youth leaders.
During the filing, the 12-year old youth leader Regine Ilustrisimo explained to the Vice
Mayor and Presiding officer of the Council what the petition was all about. Kaming
kabataan, among gihangyo ang atong mga leader nga kami untang mga kabataan
tagaan ug maayong agi-anan nga malayo kami sa accidente, said Regine. (We
children respectfully request our leaders to please give us a place to walk and to bike
safe from accidents.)

Prof. Justin Rose, an international environmental law professor of the University of

South Pacific who came all the way from Australia to document the landmark event,
said. We congratulate the children of Bantayan Island and the Filipino people for taking
this bold act of enlightened citizenship. It is an act of great courage to begin the process
of a mind-shift in the fossil-fuel based transportation systems.
Also there to witness the event was a representative of the UN Department of Justice,
lawyers from the Office of the Ombudsman, and the Director of the ASEAN Center for
Biodiversity lawyer Roberto Oliva. What the people of Bantayan Island have shown is
a pebble that is thrown in to a pond, the ripples of which will go far beyond. This
revolutionary thinking and approach to address the problem of traffic congestion, air
pollution and social alienation resulting from the present transportation system is
something that the whole world must learn from.
The lawyers who backed the Childrens Petition explained that the road sharing
principle is already contained in an existing law. In Executive Order 774 (2008), the
Departments of Interior, Transportation and Public Works were directed to transform the
road system to follow a simple principle, Those who have less in wheels must have
more in roads. They also explained the legal consequences if the local officials refuse
or fail to act on the petition.

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