The donker mayors

Before I tell you about “Donker Mayors”, allow me to introduce you to the New King of the Roads in the Philippines; the little noticed tricycle drivers. These three wheeled torture chambers that violate any and all laws about vehicle safety is officially the new king of the road in the country.

In the early years, tricycles only operated in interior roads and inside villages. They generally provided transport in areas where very few public transports operated.

Thanks to a lazy idiot in government, tricycles have been placed under the control and supervision of Mayors or local government. That single act of the lazy passing on his responsibility to the lazier is now the reason why tricycles roam our national roads creating traffic problems.

They create traffic risks and slow down on the service road alongside the South Expressway and major roads of Parañaque and Muntinlupa. They zig and they zag along C5 where other motorists almost collide just to avoid the three-wheeled menace. They cut in between buses along Buendia Avenue in Pasay City. In Quezon City they pop up like rats along Edsa between Kamias, East Avenue and Quezon Blvd. In Pasig they zoom or they crawl up and down Shaw blvd. In Mandaluyong they crawl along Pioneer, which is now a traffic heavy area.

It is clear that City Mayors are not doing anything about the problem. It is apparent that the MMDA can’t or won’t mess with tricycles on major roads and if I remember correctly it was the DOTC or the LTO that decided to let the Mayors control the tricycle drivers. But now it is the other way around.

I hope Secretary Larry Mendoza can do something about it, because the DILG does not bother with such “petty” concerns of many motorists. Perhaps Secretary Mendoza can put together an authority to deal with the growing numbers of tricycles in major roads.

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When my dad, the late Louie Beltran had a radio program at DZRH, he was known to coin words and phrases such as “anak ng bakang dalaga”, “Only in the Philippines” and his last one which was “pa donker donker”.

The last one was not about dawdling or being a lazy bone but about having an “I don’t care” attitude or the inability to do something that needs to be done or is part of your responsibility.

For several months now I have been making mental notes about things that should have been acted upon by City Mayors in Metro Manila because it’s their job and because it requires their attention.

I guess all Mayors in Metro Manila believe that they are too high and mighty to enforce the law no matter how simple it maybe. But in some cases they are the only ones who have the power and sometimes they even threaten others like the MMDA (Metro Manila Development Authority) from trespassing or subverting the power of local government.

For example, current and former Mayors are vehemently and sometimes even verbally abusive at the MMDA when Enforcers attempt to enforce traffic rules or to manage traffic flow. But the local officials themselves have very poor performance in terms of basic law enforcement.

For example, the smiling Mayor of Mandaluyong Benhur Abalos certainly has more charm than his predecessor, but just like the rest of them, Benhur Abalos has been no match against tricycles and jeepneys who violate traffic flow, who have taken over public roads and converted them to loading and unloading facilities.

In last week’s columns, Jarius Bondoc cited a long-standing curse of Mandaluyong called the Sto. Nino Towing Company, that has been the subject of many complaints and commentaries.

The question is: what magic does the tricycle drivers associations, jeepney drivers and the towing company have to keep Mayor Abalos from putting his house in order. Whatever the deal is, Mayor Benhur should at least look after the interest of others as well and not protect drivers who block traffic in Mandaluyong.

What keeps Mayor Abalos so busy that he seems to have forgotten or overlooked a portion of Mandaluyong that is on the other side of EDSA on the boundary of Pasig City? He may have a city to run on his side of Edsa, but as Mayor he owes it to the businesses on the “orphaned side of Mandaluyong” to fix roads, manage traffic flow and provide some measure of local government support and upkeep.

His traffic officers have all but disappeared in the area and replaced by a “kanto boy”, the median or center line of Pioneer st. has not been maintained often resulting in vehicular scrapes and counter-flowing drivers, and overloaded tricycles block and slow down traffic while charging taxi cab rates to helpless commuters on Pioneer street.

It pains me to say that Mandaluyong City may have a clean cut good looking Mayor, but his city is dusty, grimy and in serious need of a cleanliness campaign.

To be fair, Pasay City is equally messy and also has a Mayor that strikes no fear upon bus companies and tricycle drivers who are the single most visible contributor to traffic slowdown in the City. Imagine the impunity of security guards with shotguns who stop traffic on Buendia Avenue so that the buses of Jac Liner can drive in to their garage. They don’t care about right of way or traffic flow and they are obviously not afraid of City Hall.

With Christmas fast approaching it may be time for Mayor Lim to once again crack the whip at his people in charge of managing vendors and traffic flow in Divisoria. The last time Mayor Lim did so, it cause a major improvement in traffic flow in Divisoria.

But what Lim may not realize is that his enforcers or cops on the block have been reduced to one active unit while certain collections continue to go on. Being regular visitors of the areas, I get to talk to store owners, stall owners as well as hawkers. What I learned is that the hawker/vendors don’t care about blocking the storefronts because they have paid for their space to some collectors connected to City Hall. The money however goes to some local official of the Divisoria area and his goons. 

For the longest time the target for public criticism has always been President Arroyo. But with things deteriorating at the local level, it is time for media to shift focus and go to the local level.