Wrong message
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:03:00 08/05/2008
There were a couple of stories here last Saturday that drove home the point that those who can’t do preach. The first was Bayani Fernando warning the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) against touching his posters. “Unlike other billboards, they don’t pose danger to lives and property. They’re part of an intensified information and educational campaign of the MMDA to instill discipline among residents and restore order in the metropolis.” The DPWH, he said, should tear down instead the commercial billboards that flout the law.
What idiocy. The DPWH shouldn’t just touch his posters, they should touch him, preferable by mixing him in cement, and even more preferably not just metaphorically. More than the commercial ads, his posters are a threat to life and property, inviting as they do drivers to ram their vehicles into the offending posters. They are also a threat to health, his picture, like that of his boss, being enough to crowd hospitals with patients suddenly afflicted by hypertension and other diseases related to feelings of unbearable oppression.
At the very least, those posters subvert their professed intention. Discipline is the last thing they will encourage among the public—rioting is first. How can you instill discipline among the public when you yourself display cheekiness and irresponsibility beyond belief? Those posters were already an eyesore last year when Metro Manila residents could count whatever blessings in life they still had. They are an absolute abomination today when those same residents are reeling from the prices of rice and gas, the two most basic needs of an urban resident, that are rising faster than their leaders are falling. The fortune that went to making those posters could have been put to better use.
While at that, the fortune was harnessed only to fuel Fernando’s political ambitions. They are campaign posters, nothing more, nothing less. You know it, I know it, he knows it. The only comfort, a truly cold one, anyone may take from those posters is that they show the future voters exactly what would happen if they ever felt suicidal enough to put him in higher office. That is what he will do to their taxes.
I do know something that will assuredly instill discipline among the public. That is to throw Fernando in jail for a few years for illegal use of funds and campaigning well before the stipulated period. At the very least it would instill discipline in him. At the very most it would instill discipline in the rest of us by showing that lack of discipline, or plain abuse, won’t be tolerated in this country. It will be poetic justice as well: Finally Fernando will get a taste of what he has been giving undisciplined pedestrians to force them to keep to sidewalks. That is to fence him in.
Premature BF Campaign Posters seen in N. Ecija
N. Ecija residents see Bayani’s posters as premature 2010 campaign effort
Giant posters of Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chairman Bayani Fernando, found hanging in street of Cabanatuan and Talavera town in Nueva Ecija, raise speculations that the MMDA chair is set to run for the 2010 elections.
Some residents claimed that they saw the stickers of MMDA on the vehicles used by the people who placed Fernando’s posters along the town’s streets.
“I saw some trucks and a van who brought those posters here, they have an MMDA sticker,” one of the residents said in Tagalog.
Another resident added that it was his first time to see the posters, but said he is sure that the posters were an early campaign scheme of Fernando for the 2010 polls.
Cabanatuan City Mayor Alvin Vergara said that he has no idea why Fernando’s posters scatter around the town’s streets. He also added that he has no projects involving the MMDA chair.
Fernando’s posters convey messages on following the law, cleanliness, and discipline; the same messages tagged with his posters found in Metro Manila.
Bayani ng Zambales
Bayani Fernando Poster spotted in Zambales
Photo credits: Tsikot.com member glenn_sp
Ay MALI!
MMDA errs, dismantles LRT ‘eyesore’ in Caloocan
The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has mistakenly dismantled the vertical clearance bar in Caloocan City owned by the Light Rail Transit (LRT).
LRT officials said they were surprised that the overhead clearance sign located near the Fifth Avenue Station was identified as an illegal structure by the MMDA. It was dismantled last Tuesday.
The clearance is used by truck drivers to measure if their vehicle can safely pass under the LRT concrete beams above.
“This (dismantling of sign) is very dangerous… this structure warns the trucks. When they hit the clearance, they cannot pass under the rail,” said Mel Robles, chief administrator of the LRT.
Robles added that his office was advised about the removal of the structure.
He urged the MMDA to re-install the clearance for the safety of the trucks passing through.
The MMDA, meanwhile, admitted that its personnel committed a mistake in dismantling the clearance sign.
“This is all human error… my men made a mistake. There were unconfirmed reports saying that they did know that it was owned by the LRT, but this excuses no one,” said Robert Nacianceno, MMDA general manager.
The clearance is currently at the MMDA’s impounding area. The agency said it will take two days before it could re-assemble the structure. With a report from Gretchen Malalad, ABS-CBN News
An Open Letter to Bayani Fernando
To: Mr. Bayani Fernando
Chairman, MMDA
Dear Mr. Fernando,
I can’t help but wonder why floods are still everywhere within the Metro Manila area during a down pour, even if your office had already spent millions of tax payer’s money cleaning the estero’s and rehabilitating the pumping stations. I grew up in the same street where I am living now, and I can only remember once or twice (at most) wherein our street got flooded due to heavy rains — take note, “heavy rains”.
But now, it is very much different: the entire street gets flooded after a 20-30 minute rain. No, I am not complaining because I am against you, but I do not see my money’s worth in the way your office handles flood control.
Another thing, was it really necessary to have your face posted in every tarpauline that your office will post in the streets? True public service need not to have a face — people need not to know who leads what agency or office, as long as they are doing their jobs (right). Same goes with the “BAYANI” stickers pasted on almost all buses plying the avenues of the metropolis — is it a necessity?
I am not sure if you are very much aware of how much each tarp poster or sticker cost, but I do not think they are helping in the improvement on how Metro Manila looks from the eyes of a citizen.
Thanks for your time reading this letter. More power, and I do hope to see less of MMDA tarps with your face in the very near future.
Best regards,
