Ukkokei not legally okay

Last Tuesday’s column carried a story about the reported arrogance of Japanese noodle house Ukkokei Ramen Ron’s owner, and that it has been ordered closed upon orders of Makati Mayor Jun Binay. The mayor’s information and community relations OIC Joey Salgado emailed us a letter expressing concern about the basis for the closure order.

“Ukkokei Ramen was ordered closed because of its failure to secure working permits for its food staff, which is a violation of the Makati Revenue Code. We also found that the Japanese chef does not have a working permit from the Bureau of Immigration. The lifting of the said closure is pre-conditioned on the owner’s compliance with all requirements set by law,” Salgado clarified.

The Makati official also averred that arrogance is “unpardonable especially for establishments that thrive on good customer relations,” adding that this is, of course, “not a valid and legal basis for closing an establishment.”

There have indeed been plenty of complaints about the owner’s arrogance and rudeness especially to senior customers, but the real arrogance lies in the fact that Ukkokei continued to operate without the necessary permits.

What happened to the Ateneo way?

The video footage taken by a TV5 crew showing a motorist assaulting an MMDA traffic enforcer has gone viral, getting re-tweeted and shared at several social networking sites. The video showed a bespectacled, heavyset man identified as Robert “Blair” Carabuena cursing MMDA enforcer Saturnino Fabros and hitting the latter several times on the head and the face.

Carabuena, an Ateneo alumnus who works as a supervisor for Philip Morris International, was apparently peeved when Fabros stopped him to give way to other vehicles first. Carabuena must have also lost his cool at the fact that the MMDA enforcer – who was just doing his job – accosted him after Carabuena refused to stop his vehicle.

The appalling behavior displayed by Carabuena gives a bad name to the school where he came from, not to mention the company that he works for. St. Ignatius of Loyola must be turning over a hundred times in his grave due to the Atenean’s despicable act.

Shakespearean De Lima

With the heavy pressure on Malacañang to make the “right choice” for the country’s next Chief Justice, Spy Bits has received an avalanche of emails and text messages from followers indicating their preferred candidate as well as their reactions and comments about Justice Secretary Leila de Lima who was disqualified due to a pending disbarment case. One comment stood out however because of the obvious reference to a famous line in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” that the email sender (who declined to be named) said he slightly changed to sum up his sentiment: “The lady doth ‘complain’ too much.”

While Secretary De Lima may well be within her right to suspect that “they conspired” to disqualify her from the shortlist of SC candidates, perception from the majority is that her protests don’t sit well and only put President Noy on the spot. As a public official, she should be the first one to abide by the rules instead of demanding that they be changed in the middle of the game, some commented.

In any case, even a staunch ally like Representative Niel Tupas, who is also an ex-officio member of the JBC, has publicly stated that De Lima was “not singled out” and that they have to conform with the rules on disqualification that have been established from the very beginning. Changing them now, Tupas said, would be beneficial only to De Lima.

Indian PM: Steal, but don’t loot

The statement of an Indian public works official in the state of Uttar Pradesh generated a volley of outrage and criticism, after he was caught on camera telling his officers that they are allowed to steal “a little” provided they work hard on their projects. In other words, they should moderate their greed. Critics say Shivpal Singh Yadav’s words virtually sanctioned corruption – with the footage played over and over again across Indian news networks. Be it road construction, water or other projects, there will be no scarcity of “kickbacks,” he was also quoted to have said on another occasion.

Not surprisingly, the official blamed his predicament on the media, saying his words were taken out of context and that the segment was edited to put him in a bad light. The official, who belongs to a powerful political family that controls the ruling party in India’s biggest and crucial state of Uttar Pradesh – has now publicly declared war against the media, threatening to put into jail anyone who shows up to his press conferences uninvited. Yadav could have a future in the Philippines, some amused observers commented.

Bill Gates: Flushing cash down the toilet

The world’s second richest man Bill Gates is literally flushing cash down the toilet, allocating over $3 million in grants for scientists and designers to “reinvent the toilet.” Last year, Gates launched a contest challenging universities all over the world to come up with a revolutionary design to help solve a global sanitation problem afflicting over 2.5 billion people who do not have access to “modern sanitation.”

The big winner is Caltech (California Institute of Technology) that received $100,000 for coming up with a solar powered toilet that converts human waste into electricity; second place (with $60,000) is the UK’s Loughborough University that turns excrement into charcoal while third place went to Canada’s Toronto University for coming up with a sanitizer that separates water from the urine and feces. This is the kind of “dirty talk” that could potentially save millions of lives.

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