Blaze mars Monumento celebration

A delivery van was partially damaged by fire while another vehicle collided with a delivery truck during the celebration marking the inauguration of Caloocan City Mayor Enrico "Recom" Echiverri last Thursday night at the newly opened Bonifacio Monument Circle (BMC).

Revelers lighted pyrotechnics around the controversial Historical Walk at the BMC which was temporarily closed after being reopened to vehicular traffic to give way to their celebration.

There was slight confusion among motorists, resulting in a minor accident involving a car and the delivery truck. The incident also caused a traffic jam in the area at around 9 p.m.

At the height of the revelry, which observers likened that to a New Year’s Eve celebration, a wayward whistle bomb exploded inside a parked blue Hyundai van (XFD 786) in front of the old Ever Gotesco Mall.

The blast destroyed the van’s windows and started a fire inside the vehicle.

Firefighters from a city fire station on Samson Road put out the blaze and prevented it from spreading to other parked vehicles.

Meanwhile, former Mayor Reynaldo Malonzo gave unsolicited advice to his predecessor to pursue a "politics of construction and not destruction" as reaction to the move to reopen to motor traffic the closed portion of the BMC.

"Echiverri is resorting to political vendetta. What he did cannot affect Malonzo, but the city residents," the former mayor said adding that his project eased traffic and eliminated mulcting by unscrupulous traffic enforcers in the area.

"It enhanced the city’s tourism, eased the overflowing traffic, reduced mulcting as traffic enforcers were no longer needed and it instilled discipline among pedestrian for they were obliged to cross on proper lanes," he said.

Echiverri said the move to re-open the BMC only showed his own brand of politics, one of service. He said the tearing down of the roadblocks was neither a personal assault nor motivated by evil intent against his predecessor.

"The former mayor should be grateful for what we are doing. We are not destroying a Malonzo creation. We are only doing a better job of it," said Echiverri. "Kitang kita naman ang ebidensya. Unang araw pa lang, kitang-kita at damang-dama na lumuwag na nga ang trapik dito sa Monumento."

Even as he advised Echiverri to go slow in tearing down structures he had built during his term and begin with his own, Malonzo wished his former ally, but now political archenemy well.

"I wish him good luck and I hope he can deliver," Malonzo said.– Pete Laude, Jerry Botial