Christmas in a nation of political hamlets

I have to confess that writing this column for today comes with a measure of difficulty. From now till Christmas day, I am certain that every Filipino will be so distracted about the holidays that nothing short of an earthquake, a real successful coup, or a major volcanic eruption could possible get their attention.

Then there is the matter of picking out the appropriate topic. Just observing people around me and I can tell that the only thing they seem to pick up are traffic re-routing, Bazaar announcements, and airline announcements.

There are of course a handful of issues that could and should be given attention by government officials but given the incestuous and parasitic relationship of national and local government officials don’t hold your breath waiting for people like DILG Secretary Ronnie Puno or even the President to do something about it.

Consider for instance how “traffic” in Metro Manila essentially defeated the conduct of business because people simply could not get anywhere. Don’t blame the MMDA on this one because most of the traffic jams that happened in the last two weeks were courtesy of local government officials from cities to barangay not doing their jobs.

Thanks to local government autonomy, Mandaluyong decides to turn a crucial “round-about “ or their Municipal Rotunda into one gigantic tiangge. So all the poor people who have to cross over from Makati or Pasig simply had to grin and bear it. The Ortigas business center had its own tiangge and for this, they chose to close down a street on a weekend. In Manila, there is now an uproar of missing traffic aides, which also happened in other barangays all over Metro Manila because they were holding their Christmas party.

Of course instead of trying to work out an agreement with private villages to cooperate and open their gates during the Christmas rush our government officials did nothing of the sort because most of them now live in those very same villages and they don’t want to compromise their security of their popularity.

So instead of having a Merry Christmas, most of us are still trying to decide if this “holiday season” is worth the bother. If it takes you four times longer just to get out of your barangay, why would you even bother with buying gifts or attending Christmas parties?

The only good thing that may come out of all this harassment is we could make a list of things that need to be addressed after the holidays. For instance a law that would empower the MMDA, DILG or the Local Mayor to open up certain streets in exclusive villages during periods of seasonal traffic congestions.

As a result of the holiday congestions, maybe someone can investigate what system is in place to control local governments from undertaking activities that violate laws on traffic and public safety such as converting side walks into commercial stalls thereby forcing pedestrians and automobiles to mix it up on the road.

During the holidays, many people were also reminded of the unfinished mission of Kumpanyero Senator Rene Cayetano who was working on the regulation if not removal of parking fees at Malls. Perhaps, Pia and Peter Cayetano should try driving and parking their cars in the “independent” parking lots in Makati where you pay as much as P200 for 12-hour parking.

Perhaps, all government officials should try driving around the country or Metro Manila on their own from time to time. This way they would have a better feel of reality and how local government autonomy has quietly converted Metro Manila into “political hamlets” where barangay captains and tanods make money as kotong “cops-kuno”.

Yes we have been turned into political hamlets where City Mayors or City Councils pick out numbers from the clouds and declare them as this year’s tax rates on your real estate property. If you don’t believe it, go ask Mayor Fred Lim who now has to deal with the legal mess and tax refunds ordered by the courts because the previous administration assumed they had absolute authority.

Thanks to the political kingpins of these hamlets, many of the public roads and side walks have been handed over to tricycle associations and jeepney associations and bus companies for use as their dedicated parking area which of course earn millions of pesos annually for Mayors and their traffic operations officers.

These are just some of the things we will have to address in the coming year. The question is will you as an affected citizen simply shrug your shoulders and give up or are you willing to organize a phone brigade, a text brigade to call attention to these anomalies?

I remember an interesting incident that happened many years ago while we were on our way to catch a flight out of the country. Coming out of Villamor air base towards the NAIA, we found ourselves in the longest traffic jam.

For more than half an hour we sat patiently in the car, assuming there was an accident, or maybe several flights might be arriving, or the traffic lights might not be working. Eventually we found ourselves going nowhere and about to miss our flight.

I decided to get out of the car and walk to wherever or whatever was causing the traffic, to determine another course of action. I walked several hundred meters down the road and found the cause of the huge traffic jam.

A jeepney had been left sideways and occupied one and a half lanes of the two-lane road to the airport. I had no idea if it was stalled or abandoned but I decided to get a few guys to help me push the jeepney off the road.

Out of nowhere, the driver shows up and asked what I was doing with his vehicle. To avoid an argument I simply asked him if he wanted to explain to all the drivers in the cars behind us why he caused a two-kilometer traffic jam and caused people to miss their flights? He quickly got the point and cleared the road apologetically.

So after the holidays, you have a choice sit it out and suffer in ignorance or find out what the problem is and do something about it?