BY ASHZEL HACHERO

MAKING good his threat, Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay has ordered the dismantling of the controversial tarpaulins of Bayani Fernando, chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, along Edsa from Guadalupe Nuevo to Gil Puyat avenue.

The dismantling started Thursday afternoon, with city government personnel taking down at least 29 posters from the concrete pillars of the Metro Rail Transit in Guadalupe.

A team each was deployed at the southbound lane of Edsa from Magallanes approaching Buendia, which netted 12 posters, and from Estrella approaching Cloverleaf in Barangay Guadalupe Viejo, which tore down 17 posters.

The posters show an unsmiling, barong-clad Fernando with arms crossed over his chest and the message, "Kaayusan: Metro Guwapo, Tao Ganado, Produktibo, Kahi-rapan Naiibsan."

Metro Gwapo is a multi-billion-peso beautification and urban renewal program of the agency that seeks to transform Metro Manila into a well-developed and designed metropolis by 2010.

Binay said the posters only show the height of Fernando's "arrogance," considering that Fernando is at the forefront of the campaign against the proliferation of illegal posters, billboards and ads in the metropolis.

"But we are not surprised. Mr. Fernando is only following the footsteps of his master, Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who has also plastered the metropolis with her posters in clear defiance of the law," Binay said.

Binay, MMDA chairman in the Estrada administration, said the posters violated the provision of the National Building Code, the same provision he said that Fernando used in his campaign against illegal posters and billboards.

The MMDA together with the Department of Public Works and Highways intensified the campaign against illegal billboards in the wake of the onslaught from super typhoon "Milenyo" in 2006, which toppled about 40 billboards and other commercial ads, killing a motorist in Makati and causing damage to properties.

Binay said the MMDA did not coordinate with the local government when it put up the posters.

The MMDA earlier said there is no need to coordinate with local government units because the posters were put up along EDSA, a national road whose operations the MMDA is overseeing.