his will be a year
to remem-ber. Not just because gas prices reached their all-time highs. Not just
because rice went on to breach more than P40 per kilo for the better varieties.
We will remember 2008 as a non-stop march to Calvary. Even the government has
been playing the role of Pontius Pilate with apparent relish, continuously
washing its hands of any responsibility about what is happening.
The most recent action being the Palace announcement
declaring that its entire peace deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
rests with the Supreme Court, which must decide on its contested legality. If
that is the case, why did it negotiate such a questionable pact in the first
place? I am sure there is no shortage of high-caliber lawyers in Malacañang.
There must be something more sinister in its agenda.
But Metro Manilans are getting something such more. We are in
for "special treatment" from the Arroyo administration, which continues to
retain Bayani Fernando as the head of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA).
Fernando is not only inept at the requirements of his job; he is coincidentally
deaf and impervious to the needs of his constituents. Everything official
Fernando seems to do is just for show.
Fernando’s edifice complex has reached new heights. Not
content with dotting the Metro Manila landscape with a thousand of those
stinking pink urinals of his, which many suspect to be grossly overpriced,
Fernando’s latest non-performing legacy is the P350-million elevated U-turn slot
at C-5 and Kalayaan Avenue in Makati.
Not only has the structure the distinction of being the
country’s first elevated U-turn slot, it is probably the only U-turn slot in the
world that ended up as being "iskwalado." Motorists traversing it will not
treated to any of the smooth curve you will find in any other U-turn but a
couple of sharp 90-degree turns.
If that is not risky business, then why does the MMDA have to
put in plastic barriers against the concrete walls to absorb some of the impact
from any wayward car of unsuspecting motorists? We do not know if Mrs. Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo has ever used that U-turn slot but even she, I am sure, would
notice it is just one big waste of public money. On top of the driving hazards,
the traffic usually crawls at a snail’s pace. So much so for the latest traffic
improvement scheme complements of her administration.
And, if you are an ardent believer that the floods in Metro
Manila are caused primarily by uncollected garbage, guess again. The city
government of Makati has consistently recorded garbage collection efficiencies
in excess of one hundred percent against its projected waste generation rates.
Yet last Friday’s rains resulted into flash floods along portions of Senator Gil
J. Puyat Avenue that caused horrendous traffic jams well into the wee hours of
the day.
If Fernando is to be believed, then Makati should have
remained high and dry amid Friday’s deluge. And, according to the law creating
the MMDA, it has exclusive control over all flood control and mitigation
projects within Metro Manila, which is why the entire flood control section of
the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH)-National Capital Region has
been devolved to the agency.
In one of his most recent pronouncements, Fernando has warned the DPWH from
tearing down those huge posters splashing his face for all of Metro Manilas to
see. According to Fernando, "unlike other billboards, (these posters) don’t pose
danger to lives and property." We humbly beg to disagree. Fernando has also
expounded that "order and discipline" are the key to national progress. Fernando
should say that more often in front of a mirror. The Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse – Pestilence, War, Famine and Death – have found another riding
companion – "Delusion," since Fernando believes and wants us to think he is
doing a good job.
