To most Manileños, Marikina always seemed too distant and too far. Never mind if it’s just at the edge of Quezon City’s third district. But even if it was deemed too remote by most city folks, the valley still became ripe for real estate decades after the war.
In the late ’60s, Marikina lured not only the living, but also the dead with the development of the Loyola Memorial Park, a final resting place so different from the spooky public cemeteries like the Cementerio del Norte in La Loma and the South Cemetery in Makati.
Marikina, however, still failed to charm me. Although I live in a subdivision that overlooks the valley, I hardly ever set foot there. Traffic was bad there even at night. And it was prone to flooding – with waters sometimes rising waist-high.
The valley, however, got its most serious blackeye in the ’90s when the series of rape-murder cases there were played up in the headlines and, later, immortalized in the movie Marikina Files.
A few years ago, however, a friend whose family moved there in the ’70s marveled at the changes taking place in Marikina. As if overnight, the city became safe and clean. And there was discipline all over the place.
Today, Marikina is even attracting local and foreign tourists to its Riverbank commercial area.
Marikinenses attribute all these fantastic changes to its former Mayor, Bayani Fernando, who, as we all know, now heads the Metro Manila Development Authority. (His wife, Ma. Lourdes, is the mayor and the Marikina residents also swear by her efficiency and administrative skills.)
When Chairman Fernando was still Marikina mayor, residents of neighboring towns and cities hardly knew how he looked like. Unlike most other Metro Manila mayors, Fernando didn’t seem to enjoy the limelight. He just worked quietly – but with amazing results.
As MMDA chairman, however, Bayani Fernando can no longer escape the cameras – especially television. Finally – thanks to the power of television (and Page 1 pictures on the papers) – he now has a face and we all know how he looks like. No, he doesn’t have the statesmanlike stance of Manuel L. Quezon – or perhaps even the upright posture of former Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim. However, he certainly looks a lot, lot better than Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay.
Bayani Fernando’s appointment as MMDA chairman was well-applauded not only by Marikina residents, but also by other people from Metro Manila who heard about the great facelift he gave to the valley.
As MMDA chairman, however, he has a formidable task ahead of him. I don’t know him and I’ve never met him. In fact, my only affiliation to him is that we have the same initials (BF). But I have faith in him – short of calling him Super B (for Bayani), except that Rufa Mae Quinto already beat him to that title.
Too bad, his early days in office was met by the opening of classes and yes, typhoons Gloria and Inday. But knowing his track record (he is an engineer, by the way, for those who do not know yet), I believe he would be able to handle the job and succeed in areas where all his predecessors had failed.
I know that he can’t solve all the problems of Metro Manila just by himself since he has to deal with other mostly corrupt government agencies. But if only we can dump all of Metro Manila’s problems on his lap and ask him to come up with solutions to these perennial headaches, this is the scenario I’d like to see for our metropolis:
• For Metro Manila residents to traverse from one end of the metropolis to the next within a reasonably short period of time. Traffic, unfortunately, had always been synonymous to Manila. Even when I was still in the grades, my father had to dump us boys in our school sometimes as early as 5:30 a.m. (yes, the moon would still be in its full glory when we’d reach the school gate) because he had to deliver our only sister at the College of the Holy Spirit in Mendiola and they had to avoid the bottleneck that started to form in the Sta. Mesa area at 6:30 in the morning.
• For Metro Manila streets to be rid of ill-mannered jeepney and taxi drivers. Any long-time resident of Manila, of course, knows how these jeepney drivers inconsiderately stop in the middle of the street to load and unload passengers. When I was just learning how to drive, jeepney drivers really made it tough for me on the road. Somehow they know that you are a new driver even if you don’t have the A-1 Driving School sign posted at the rear of your vehicle. Just for fun, they would stick close to your car to scare you and make you tremble with fear behind the wheel. And yes, they succeeded in making a nervous wreck out of me in those days.
As for taxi drivers, I hate it when they leisurely cruise the streets in search of passengers (whom they will turn down anyway if they don’t like the route dictated by the helpless passengers). But once they already have their passengers onboard, they will rudely cut across your path or honk at you when they can’t get to your lane.
Now, I’m not saying that all jeepney and taxi drivers are rude. But that is my general experience with most of them.
• For Metro Manila sidewalks to be clear of vendors. Sidewalks are there for walking and not for peddling. I know that sidewalk vending is the only means of livelihood for some people. (Chairman Fernando, however, revealed just recently that most sidewalk vendors aren’t really all that destitute – and they don’t even have to pay for licenses and taxes!) But then, we have to put things in order, if we don’t want chaos and anarchy to rule this world.
(To be continued)