Excerpt from An Waray Party-List Website

BF told to solve EDSA traffic first before aiming for presidency

Chairman Bayani Fernando of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) was urged Sunday to solve the traffic along EDSA before aiming for the presidency and offering to tackle bigger problems.

“If he cannot untangle the daily traffic gridlock along EDSA, I don’t think he should offer himself to run the country, which is facing bigger and more serious problems,” Rep. Florencio “Bem” Noel of the party-list group An Waray said.

Noel said if Fernando is able to cut travel time along EDSA from Quezon Avenue in Quezon City to Pasay City by half, he would earn for himself bragging rights that would be a big asset in his presidential aspiration.

Noel, however, said instead of easing EDSA traffic, Fernando and his MMDA people “have become part of the problem.”

He cited the concrete islands and pink metal fences MMDA erected near Greenhills in San Juan and in front of Camp Aguinaldo and near New York Street in Quezon City, which he said have effectively eaten up one lane of the busy highway.

Noel pointed out that various groups of travelers and vehicle owners, traffic policemen and local officials have blamed these concrete barriers and pink metal fences for the constriction of the road and for innumerable vehicular accidents, many of which have resulted in deaths.

“It’s bad enough that they employ a trial-and-effort, hit-miss approach to the traffic problem. But what is worse is that when it is very evident that such approach does not work, they insist on pursuing it and do not make the necessary correction,” Noel stressed.

He said the islands and pink fences that Fernando built on EDSA are as useless as the passenger loading and unloading bays and steel fences he built along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City.

“As in EDSA, these loading and unloading bays and the trademark pink fences are a constriction in Commonwealth. Now, they are even building traffic islands there to further constrict the highway,” he said.

Noel added Fernando and his people are apparently creating traffic chokepoints in areas where there are none.

“Sidewalk vendors don’t just break the law,” reasoned Fernando, “they steal from legitimate market vendors who have licenses and are paying taxes.” They are also guilty of economic sabotage, according to Fernando. “Just imagine the man-hours lost, and the billions of pesos in business opportunities foregone because of traffic delayed congested streets and sidewalks.”

Excerpt from MMDA Chair Bayani Fernando, Antihero? by Alicor Panao

Excerpt from The Badjaos: Proud and Ridiculed

Bayani Fernando, chair of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), has threatened with arrest these indigenous people. According to him, they cause traffic.

Henry Borreo, a member of the National Council of the Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (Kamp), condemned the statements of the MMDA chair in a recent press conference.

“After Fernando’s unmerciful attacks on vendors these past months, we indigenous peoples who are among the most abused and neglected citizens of this country are now his targets,” Borreo said. “We do not say that begging should be tolerated but the issue of dire poverty, the lack of basic social services, unemployment, and the massive displacement of IPs from their ancestral lands — these are the issues that government officials like Fernando are obliged to address, not the subjugation of the poor.”