Elinando B. Cinco
By Elinando B. Cinco
Maybe the intention was noble and taxpayer-friendly. But the in-house TV institutional hype running through the visitors’ lounge of major departments in Quezon City Hall that chiefly highlights the facilities of the city is injecting yawns and indifferent looks from bored citizens.
The colored video is superb, but the audio portion is left much to be desired. It is the content of the production that is causing locals undeserved irritation.
Last March 8, I joined a moderate crowd at the assessor’s office to take advantage of the usual 20 percent discount on real estate taxes that are paid in advance for the incoming year.
While waiting for my line number to be called, I was glancing at two things: The hanging TV monitor set where the main staple is that institutional film I mentioned earlier, and the other were the expressions of taxpayers seated.
My candid observations: First, the captured audience of taxpayers was annoyed and many would not even take a second look at the TV screen after, ostensibly, feeling disgusted of what they have seen a few seconds back.
I asked the next guy seated beside me why he looked disappointed at the VTR. “Simple.They are not telling the truth. Why show all those modern medical apparatus like a new MRI machine and ultra-sound equipment which the Quezon City General Hospital, as portrayed, has,” he moaned. “My family friend went to that hospital last week to visit a sick neighbor who had to buy his own antibiotic tablets and dextrose bottle.”
I had my doubts if the fellow was telling the truth. But he seemed genuinely mournful.
I noticed one feature of the city that got me wondering no end. It describes Quezon City as “a retail paradise.” In advertising, it is mandatory that a highlighted claim must be supported well.
And what support did that claim have? A full shot of giggling flimsy clad girls! Any adman worth his salt will tell you, there are a host of exciting features to reinforce the claim of being “a paradise of cheap retail prices.”
Now, QC officials are back again to their old habit of concocting slogans for their metropolis. This time they came up with two: “A Consumer City,” and “A World-Class City.”
Now I heard that residents are clamoring for a justification to strengthen the former claim that is believable.
Well there is one. A close-up video shot of a monkey-eating eagle, shown immediately after the claim.Aside from its being endemic to us, the Philippine eagle is also a mean predator.
Now tell us if buyers will not feel being gobbled up by run-away retail prices of consumer and basic items in a city where predatory prices are a reality, and yet tells shoppers it is “a retail paradise?”
And what about the second slogan – “A World-Class City?” I have seen moderately-sized full-colored billboards at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue leading to Holy Spirit Drive and on the Elliptical Road.
No further comment. But if our readers will recall, the last time a top local official south of Metro Manila call his 11-story allegedly over-priced City Hall-annex and parking building was during a Senate probe a few years back.
Asked by one senator why the edifice was reportedly grossly overpriced – “Why, it is world-class!” The next thing we knew, he was indicted for graft.
But over and above this critique, I propose that the QC government redesign its official logo – “that triangle, with stars at three corners, inscribed Lungsod ng Quezon.”
Yes, it’s an old design that seems to predate the administration of four or five city mayors in the past.
But upon close scrutiny, the tri-star seal looks like those of some religious cults that are active in the deepest jungles of Mindanao.