Yes, there used to be a rotunda near the Delta Theater-Maalikaya Health Complex, which explains why there used to be a second cinema there appropriately named "Circle."

But the NAIA 3 rotundas are noticeable for another reason – they both contain a huge billboard proclaiming that the rotundas will be the site of a "monument" to the Filipino’s world-class mentality – or something to that effect. To make things work, whoever was the idiot who conceived the idea even drags the President into the folly by referring to her in the billboard.

I’d say that whatever structure they seek to build on those two rotundas should be investigated not by the Ombudswoman but by the World Bank. May kikita na naman diyan in another worthless project of a monument to the wrong things.

On the other hand, they would be appropriately next to an international airport that could not have been built without every successive administration dipping its hands into the till. From Ramos to Erap to Gloria – the NAIA 3 is a monument to how every major public works project is apparently an opportunity to extract commissions at the expense of a bloated project budget that you and I will have to pay for somehow.

What we don’t need is another monument that no one will notice. What we need are more jail cells that we should properly populate, with the proper female wing built to the specifications of the Ombudswoman – even if these cells are within the St. Luke’s Hospital complex.

I remember when the Marcos bust project was still a work in progress in the late 1970s-early 1980s. I shot off a short letter to Time Magazine, which had featured the bust in a story on the Philippines. In the letter, which the magazine printed, I said that leaders who were truly loved by their people need not worry about being forgotten long after they were gone from the scene because the people themselves would build a monument in their hearts and minds. Unfortunately, Marcos did not put a stop to the project – an Aspiras-inspired one, I am told – and while over the years the bust became a favorite subject for picture taking, its eventual destruction by NPAs and the resulting lack of a public outcry was a much more eloquent expression of the public attitude towards Marcos.

While the idiots in charge of the NAIA 3 rotundas are not proposing to put up a bust of GMA, I am still hoping that the President put a stop to this folly of monument-building (and commission-taking!)

In fact, driving to the airport early yesterday morning, something else struck me: how much of the little things we do (or do not do) are monuments in themselves to why we are where we are – in a rut?

When you drive past NAIA 3 and past the PAL and Air Philippines employee entrances, you come to the intersection with Tramo that features a gas station on your right. That intersection used to be a traffic area, but traffic authorities have decided to block the intersection with barriers in the middle of the road. Coming from Tramo, if one needed to go to the NAIA 3 which would be on the left, one would have to first turn right, drive towards Domestic Road, and turn around a mini-rotunda (another one!) and double back toward Tramo and head on toward the old Nichols base where NAIA 3 sits.

It was 4:45 in the morning, but a minor traffic buildup was happening at that closed intersection because tricycles that ply the route there were taking matters into their own hands. Crossing from Tramo, they had to slow down as they navigated between the concrete barriers in the middle of the road to get to the other side. My immediate thoughts: this habit of tricycle drivers of short cutting the process could one day result in a smash-up – and pity the tricycle passenger. Then again oftentimes that is what it will take before we stop doing stupid things.

Again, when I got to the intersection of the Domestic airport road and the Airport road that cuts from Roxas boulevard all the way to the PAL Centennial-NAIA 2 terminal, another Filipino motorist, this time a motorcyclist, took things into his own hands. We were at a red light and waiting for the signal to turn right towards the PAL terminal when the motorist — sensing that despite the red light there were no vehicles crossing in front anyway – zoomed off on his own as if he was running from something (definitely not from the probing by the Ombudswoman!). I held my breath for a second because again here was the perfect formula for a disaster of some sort. We all know how car drivers can zoom out of nowhere in the early morning when traffic is light and traffic cops are still asleep like the Ombudswoman. I only heaved a deep sigh of relief when he got through to the other side without incident. But that’s when irritation kicked in, irritation at the knowledge that the motorcyclist was doing something very Pinoy – taking things into his own hands and short-cutting processes and getting away with it.

But how to stop it? Well, sometimes you find yourself ending up wishing ill on others – remember, not until he gets into an accident will the tricycle driver or the motorcyclist learn a lesson – but should we truly degenerate into such a situation?