The members of the Metro Manila Mayors League in all their glory were all out of breath after they were forced to walk down the 21 floors of the new City Hall building of Makati.
When the mayors arrived at the newly constructed and high-tech building, Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay proudly served as the tour guide as he led his counterparts up and down the building.
Manila City Mayor Lito Atienza even joked that he entered the wrong building as it looked more like the Citibank headquarters rather than the City Hall.
The Mayors League meeting was concluded over lunch after which all of those in attendance headed for the "smart elevators."
Instead of being able to immediately leave, the mayors were made to wait as the elevators malfunctioned.
Mayor Jaime Fresnedi of Muntinlupa, Sigfrido Tinga of Taguig, Tobias Tiangco of Navotas, Lito Atienza of Manila, Wenceslao Trinidad of Pasay, Soledad Eusebio of Pasig, Valenzuela’s Bobbit Carlos, JV Ejercito of San Juan and Rosendo Capco of Pateros all had to take the fire exit stairs down.
Makati City Hall employees and visitors who took the stairs were surprised to see the group of mayors and their bodyguards going down the flight of stairs.
Trinidad, who has been very weak, reportedly due to a liver ailment, had to stop at least three times to catch his breath at the floors which were still under construction.
Upon reaching the lower floors of the building, the sweat-drenched Trinidad was informed by his fan-carrying bodyguards that the elevators were working again.
He jokingly refused to use them, claiming that he might be stuck inside the elevator, but was eventually persuaded to do so.
Unlike most elevators, the Makati City Hall elevators do not have operators as the passengers are assigned to corresponding cars determined with the touch of a button.
These new elevators caused a huge problem for City Hall visitors used to manually-operated counterparts.
Instructions were posted on the walls near the control panels where the destination is punched in.
After several weeks of confusion among visitors, City Hall decided to set up television screens on the ground floor beside the elevators which showed an instructional video on how to use the elevators.