With the obvious exception of the helmsman of the Department of Transportation and Communications, Chairman Emerson Carlos of the Metro Manila Development Authority must be the most hopelessly incompetent and inutile official of the moribund administration of President Benigno Aquino III. In the local government scene, however, that distinction belongs to reelectionist Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista of the Liberal Party (LP), the pro-administration political party.
In the late morning of last Tuesday, around a hundred sympathizers of the New People’s Army staged a motorcade in the Cubao district of Quezon City. Most of them were displaying the hammer and sickle, the international symbol of that godless ideology called communism. The motorcade was led by a hearse which carried the ashes of one of the group’s fallen leaders. Being a hearse, it was travelling at a snail’s pace. Whenever the motorcade reached a populated area, it stopped and, almost automatically, speeches against the government were delivered by several of the group’s leaders. The speeches continued as long as there were listeners.
By around noontime, the motorcade stopped infront of the Nepa-Q-Mart wet market on the northbound lane of Edsa, and another series of anti-government tirades took place. The hearse was stationed at the bottleneck beside the Edsa-Kamias flyover, thus blocking vehicular access thereto, and ultimately preventing vehicles from Edsa from proceeding to either Kamias or Kamuning. This incident delayed the flow of traffic all the way to Shaw Boulevard in Mandaluyong for several hours.
For obvious reasons, rallies are not allowed along Edsa, and this rule applies also to rallies masquerading as funeral motorcades. Being so, it looks like both the NPA rally infront of Nepa-Q-Mart did not have any permit from Quezon City Hall. Didn’t Mayor Bautista or any of his city hall officials know about it? Perhaps Bautista is busy campaigning for his reelection (even if he has no real opponent) and is oblivious to the sufferings of taxpaying motorists sojourning in his territorial jurisidiction.
MMDA Chairman Emerson Carlos is no different. Not a single one of his MMDA traffic enforcers was anywhere in sight within the vicinity of the rally, even just to clear the roadway for the suffering motorists. Those traffic enforcers are probably busy campaigning for Liberal Party candidates.
Reporting the incident to the offices of either Bautista or Carlos was an exercise in futility. The telephone number to Bautista’s office is always busy. On the other hand, the so-called MMDA hotline flaunted by Carlos is useless—a recording will tell you that the line is busy, and that you should try calling up again at some future time. In all likelihood, that hotline is connected to a call center made up of incompetent attendants, and that its fees are paid for by the taxpayers.
Even assuming that the rally was kept a secret from city authorities or the MMDA at the start, the activity was long and conspicuous enough to attract the attention of Bautista and his minions at city hall, or Carlos and his hirelings. The activity caught the attention of the media—why did it escape the attention of Bautista and Carlos?
Quezon City under Mayor Bautista has become an awful place to be a resident of. Months ago, the Office of the Ombudsman filed anti-graft charges at the Sandiganbayan against a number of Quezon City councilors who were found to have allowed the use of public funds to pay the salaries of several ghost employees. The city government also tried to collect garbage fees from its residents, but it stopped only when the citizens vehemently protested the extortion.
On another occasion, the attempt of the city government to impose an arbitrary limitation on the number of pet animals a resident may own at any one time, met tough opposition from both the residents and animal enthusiasts as well.
Nobody in slippers is allowed to enter the Quezon City Hall of Justice, despite the fact that justice should be readily accessible by everybody, rich and poor alike.
Real estate taxes in Quezon City, the workingman’s haven envisioned by Philippine Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon, are among the highest in Metropolitan Manila today. There is, however, hardly any benefit to the general public, as demonstrated by the illegal rally which created a traffic mess in Cubao last Tuesday.
An unannounced fire drill yesterday at Quezon City Hall disrupted court hearings in the nearby Hall of Justice. When asked how long the fire drill was to take place, none of the cops assigned to city hall could provide any answer. It became a needless holiday for many.
The MMDA under Carlos is just as inept. Plastic orange road blocks dot Edsa and other major roadways, thus narrowing the available road space. These road blocks, mockingly called “orange Toblerone bars” by many motorists, often get misaligned, and when they do so, they become road obstacles. An opening on top of each road block suggests that it is supposed to be filled with water to make it too heavy to get easily misaligned, but those openings have missing lids. This, in turn, means that whatever water is inside each of them easily evaporates, especially this summer season.
Many of the orange road blocks are not even reflectorized. This makes them road hazards at night. A motorist who gets into an accident because of these road hazards can easily sue Carlos for damages. Graft raps may also be filed against him.
Metropolitan Manila was one large traffic nightmare last December because Carlos was too occupied with the Metropolitan Manila Film Festival. Under the MMDA charter, the MMDA has nothing to do with this annual film festival. By involving itself in the film festival, the MMDA is performing a function that is not authorized by law. This makes MMDA officials vulnerable to anti-graft raps.
