Just take the case of that Barbarian Barbers (with due apologies to his mother-in-law; it’s obvious she can’t drum any sense into his head) that President Arroyo inflicted on us by appointing him Philippine Tourism Authority manager. (You think maybe the President is trying to tell us something? You know like she’s scraping the bottom of the barrel and has no choice? I mean first Barbers and now Atienza?) For reasons that no one involved in tourism could understand it occurred to this sudden expert in marketing the country that Wow! we really could use a gym in a historic area of Manila. I mean some Scandinavian or Russian has never seen a damn gym in his life, right? And the minute he hears that there’s one blocking the grandeur of the Intramuros walls he’s gonna jump into the first plane and make a bee-line for that gym to see what idiot was capable of desecrating heritage. Or maybe those thousands of Koreans invading the country are bipolar and insanely addicted to working out. They take a trip and head straight for a gym! You think its possible that maybe this guy Barbers made an in-depth study and came to the brilliant conclusion that the way to add another million or two tourists was to construct a senseless lifeless structure totally out of sync with its surroundings characterized by his total insensitivity to history and heritage?

What can I tell you? The PTA Board as you know rejected the project, the Intramuros Board refused to give him a permit; he doesn’t have a building permit from the City of Manila either. You think it bothered this guy? No way, Jose. Presumably because his dad was a policeman turned senator and his brothers are all in politics, Junior here is above the law. He straightway hired some unknown construction company and went pell-mell, all systems go and here we are saddled with his piece of idiocy defacing the Intramuros walls which, to add insult to injury, is gonna cost us poor Filipino millions when many of us can’t even get three full meals a day. Mrs. President, don’t you feel even a twinge of pity for us at all? Will you please reconsider and boot him over to Customs or Immigration where he can keep Lito Atienza company?

It is of course totally and absolutely beyond me why the Secretary of Tourism didn’t suspend him for insubordination. Or why the PTA has a Board some second-rate government official can ignore. Where does PGMA find these riff-raffs? (Think Atienza and those cheesy lights in the boulevard you know what I mean.) Someone said that since the President appointed him only the President could suspend him. So what she waiting for, The Second Coming? Inspiration from the Holy Spirit? Of course if I think in terms of a pretend government, then it all comes together and makes sense in this world of the absurd. The comedy continues to be played out: we have laws but they’re only there for decoration; not respect. We have boards in government agencies that are there to be ignored. We have dumb-dumbs appointed to government positions not because of competence but to pay off some imagined political debt and where they proceed to make a mess of the job as Barbers is doing. And we wonder why the country is so mediocre in everything?

Obviously, the President doesn’t care that some two-bit manager is contributing to the urban smear of Manila, creating instant blight, without standards or taste with a pathetic substandard design against the elegance of 400 year old walls. Since she doesn’t care you’d think she’d get rid of him since he’s nothing but one big embarrassment and sets a crappy example for the rest of the staff at DOT. I mean how demoralized can you get knowing there’s some rinky-dink guy who can thumb his nose at the Secretary of Tourism just because. And what does that make the secretary, a lame duck? According to Barber’s actions he’s above the law and therefore what’s the message that’s being broadcast to people? Think about it.

But then it’s also beyond me why Secretary Durano didn’t hire his own wrecking crew and tear down the construction. At least eight months ago his idiot manager hadn’t managed to throw that much of our money into a dubious and stupidly destructive project.

On July 17 a TRO was handed down by Judge Antonio Rosales of Branch 52 of a Manila Regional Trial Court eight months after construction began. . Unfortunately, this is only good for a certain period. What does the DOT do when the time’s up?