WALA LANG
PARK AT YOUR OWN RISK. The Rizal Monument at Rizal Park before the pandemic.
Color/Number Coding. I’m all for reducing traffic and certainly number-coding helps. Those who can afford it, however, buy a second car, maybe even a third, to use when their first car is grounded. Traffic is reduced only by those who can’t afford another car. Some people really need a car all days of the week for their work. It’s a bit late, but how about issuing permits for a high fee, to those who really need a car every day? That ought to cut down the need for replacement when second cars wear out, ease life for those who need a car every day, raise government revenue, and save foreign exchange.
Raising streets. So much road construction is going on. In my usual routes, España was raised because of floods in the UST area, ditto for San Marcelino. The trouble is that the raised street acts as dams, preventing flood water from seeking its own level. Streets are dry, but the neighborhoods on both sides are not. So homeowners raise their property and the cycle is repeated. Wouldn’t it be better to clear drainage pipes regularly and see to it that esteros are free of garbage and plastic so that rain water is channeled out quickly?
Election protests. The spectacle of the recent US elections reminds me of the suspicion that here, votes of one candidate are sometimes counted as votes of another. Can’t election computer programs be written to make it possible to trace the vote count of a precinct to subsequent municipal, provincial, city, and national level tallies? Candidates have watchers and it would then be possible to check their tally all the way to the final Manila tabulation. Sampling needs to be statistically valid, but that way any election protest can be resolved before the wrongly proclaimed winner’s term ends.
Red Tape. There’s a great law that calls for the reduction of government red tape. It seems to be interpreted in differing ways, e.g., corporations have been required to disclose their exact address. It’s a good idea, but was it necessary to enshrine the info in their Articles of Incorporation? Amending Articles of Incorporation requires Board and Stockholder approvals. Stockholder meetings are held once a year. The needed time, paperwork and fees are bad enough but the process has to be repeated anytime the company moves. There ought to be ways of getting information without needing so much paper, filing cabinets and file rooms, time, and vexation.
Greenery. People are hungry for parks—just see Rizal Park on New Year’s Eve and special holidays before Covid-19 that is. They are destinations of the common man ordinarily cooped up in crowded shanties. Central Manila used to have an immense green belt around Intramuros. Government buildings were built on part of it before World War II but Mehan Garden and Rizal Park were retained. Now greenery has retreated, pushed back by government offices, hamburger joints, recruitment offices, etc. The unbuilt part of Quezon Memorial Circle is the tiny portion that remains of what was planned as an enormous park encompassing the present North, South, East, and West Triangles. Subdivision “open space” is occupied by barangay offices, covered courts, basketball courts, fire stations. Small wonder that we have flash floods whenever it rains.
Rush hour. Before Covid-19, Metro Manila’s main streets were slow moving or at a dead stop for 16 hours, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. The cost of the traffic in terms of fuel, vehicle wear and tear, time lost, tempers raised is obviously enormous. In their infinite wisdom our traffic gods have decided that channeling traffic into lanes will smooth the flow. This might be so, but a truck breakdown or an accident on one lane causes havoc. A bus pausing to pick up passengers in midstream, as they often do, means a delay. Passengers get off a center lane because the bus can’t swing right. Can’t we prioritize public transportation and aim to have something like Tokyo’s or even like the ancient New York and London systems and save all these costs.
Plastics. I keep on receiving letters, invitations, bills, notices of meetings, etc., via courier. The notice is in a white envelope that is in a larger brown envelope that is in turn protected by a plastic envelope. Think of the trees cut, fuel burned to manufacture and eventually to get rid of the paper and plastic, and the resulting pollution. Ditto for plastic straws automatically placed not on bottles but on drinking glasses. Can’t we drink straight from the glass rather than through a straw as we used to do?
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PHOTO CAPTION:
PARK AT YOUR OWN RISK The Rizal Monument at Rizal Park before the pandemic (Photo by )