O ayan malinaw ha, kahit sa mga so-called "dangerous places" na tinatawag ng MMDA kailangan parin ng 30-day notice.

Problema nga lang, sino ang nag dedetermina kung alin ang mga "dangerous places" at kung kelan ito dapat i-demolish? Hmmm kailangan pa bang i-memorize yan ...

Sa ibang usapin, meron nang paa ang metal footbridge na diagonal ang tawid sa Harrison St. at EDSA. Sa araw na ito mukhang di parin siya nagagamit dahil hindi parin tapos ang pag hinang ng mga dugtong nito. Mukhang merong din isa pang pedestrian overpass na itatayo malapit sa Pasay Rotonda, lampas ng konti sa Savers Plaza kung ikaw ay northbound.

Ang masasabi ko lang dito ay "It's about time." Ilang taon naring nakatayo sa kahabaan ng EDSA galing Roxas Blvd papuntang Pasay Rotonda ang mga pink na barriers sa island sa kalagitnaan ng kalye, na pilit sinusuway ng mga tumatawid dahil kailangan nilang tumawid. Bakit kaya inabot ng ganito katagal ang pag gawa ng mga footbridge ...

Of course the Chairman wants them all out. They sabotage the economy by earning and not paying taxes on their earnings. They squat on the sidewalks that have been painted with the pink lines and some even on the garish blue pedestrian walkways. The Chairman wants their goods "confiscated" so that their capital will be lost and some of them will even be in debt because they had only borrowed the capital from their friendly neighborhood loanshark, just to given themselves a chance to earn perhaps few hundred pesos a day.

The Chairman wants them all to go back where they came from. Raul Pangalangan has answered that long ago, but as is his style, the Chairman still refuses to listen.

The solution is not to stop the vending itself; the solution is to legalize the vending, by providing the vendors a proper place to sell their goods, and collecting fees for the value received.

We must see the vendors as legitimate businessmen whom we must foster and develop. Whenever you pass those “Sweet Corn” vendors with handwritten cardboard signs saying “May Luto,” ask yourself how much they earn from each “mais” [corn], how much for a whole day of sitting under the rain or sun, and compute how much of your loose change could have made a difference in their lives. (How do they bring their corn all the way there, and how do they bring home the unsold corn at 8 p.m. when they close shop for the day?) They don’t need a school of entrepreneurship to know that they must sell if they want to survive.

What worries me even more is the callous attitude of the educated Filipino, confronted with Fernando’s argument that we must keep the public spaces public. Sure, Fernando has a point, but it’s not as if his is the rational view and our opposition is, at best, a humanitarian plea. This is not a debate of the hard-nosed versus the bleeding heart, of reason versus mushy emotion. No, Fernando’s is just one of several options, and we as human beings must choose the most humane among them.

It is always so frustrating to hear about children dying. Infants dying when they could have had a better chance since they were already in hospital. Yet we still learn of such cases, in places where skill, technology and room should not have been lacking, the Ospital ng Makati. I would think that with a structure such the City Hall of Makati, which can give any high rise on Ayala Avenue a run for its money, the public hospital might have had its rightful share of the budget.

Tomorrow the preliminary reports of the DOH will be made known to the public.

The report said the disease could have come from mothers who failed to have pre-natal check up or if she had delivered a premature baby. The disease could also be acquired from the hospital if the institution uses unsanitized medical tools and equipment.

The OsMak is where over a hundred thousand Makati residents who are Yellow Card (Makati Health Plus (MHP) Card) holders can go to get subsidized medical attention.

Just because it's free doesn't mean it has to be dirty.

High tuition has forced many to abandon college dreams

MANILA, Philippines - Thousands of college hopefuls might be forced to drop out of school this year, a Filipino youth group said, citing recent enrollment trends.

In a statement, Kabataang Pinoy said that the rising cost of education has forced more and more privately-schooled students to transfer to public institutions or stop studying altogether.

Records from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) show that in 1980, only 10 percent of college students were studying in state schools. By 1994, the number went up to 21 percent and currently accounts for almost 40 percent of tertiary population.

“But many of these transferees will find themselves dropping out of college. The problem is, there are no more rooms in state schools either," Kabataang Pinoy President Dion Carlo Cerrafon said in a statement.

“State universities and colleges are confronted by similar problems. Poor education spending and annual budget cutbacks force state schools to impose enrolment quotas and increase fees, forcing many state scholars to leave," he added.

As a result, Cerrafon said that access to public higher education institutions, which are the last resort for students who want to obtain a college degree, has become impossible for many young people intending to secure a diploma.

“While it is true that state universities and colleges offer tuition lower than private schools, tuition rate and miscellaneous fees in state schools and universities have seen the biggest increases in recent years, thus making it also inaccessible to ordinary students," he explained.

In a country where people with a college education are at a premium, the news of outlandish tuition fees for this schoolyear augurs a bleaker future for those who do not have the werewithal to pursue their college dreams.

It brings to the fore the failure of this government to provide for its youth. This is a government whose aim is to turn its people into cattle for export to countries who will exploit them and abuse them. This is the government whose answer to unemployment is to create legions of streetsweepers. This is a government busy amassing wealth for the big event two years from now so that even the Countrywide Development Fund (CDF) allotted to some congressmen and senators are now going into activities that will further their bids for 2010, not to mention a certain cabinet secretary who considers himself lord over all EDSA.

A government that cannot educate its people is doing it on purpose. This government aims to raise a citizenry that will be forever beholden to partisan politics and the palakasan system, in order to get ahead in life. This government knows that it cannot make money out of its schools and of its students, not the kind of money that they need now -- as they hold their CDF's close to their chests. This government does not see a future of well-educated and respectable young people who can eventually take over the running of the country -- far from it.

This governmnent cannot allow the emerence of the new Filipino through the education of its citizenry. It seeks only to perpetuate its old rotten self.

While glancing at newspaper headlines on the newspaper stands I pass on the way to work, I noticed a "Boycott Judy Ann Santos" Headline on one of them. I didn't get the chance to find out the reason for the boycott call util this morning.

I was on a taxi on the way to a meeting before going to the office. The cabbie's radio was tuned in to DZRH and a commercial from Meralco came on. It was Judy Ann, and she matter of factly tried to explain that paying for system loss was common in the Pinoy's typical day. For example, she said, when one buys ice from a sari sari store, a part of it is usually melted by the time the buyer gets home. That is system loss.

Tangina.

It sure looks like Juday is better off touting her weight loss program, because it seems to be working. I saw her at the Powerplant mall a couple of months ago and indeed, the once chubby actress is every bit as shapely as she looks in her commercials.

But for her to try to convince that the system loss charges that Meralco passes off to its consumers is as simple as ice melting on your way home reveals that she is in way over her head. This belies a total lack of research on the part of the actress or her manager, or a lack of effort to understand just what she was promoting. This is definitely not a good move for her as an actress with a following such as she has.

I had a brother in law who worked as a regular employee at the Visayan Electric Company in Metro Cebu. One of the perks he had was free electricity for his house for the duration of his employ. I wonder what Juday got paid for that Meralco ad. If it's free electricity for her house for the rest of her life, I don't really blame her for doing the ad. We're all just trying to get by as best we can.

But for the ad writers to compare Meralco's system loss to melting ice from the sarisari store is idiotic, to say the least. And for Juday to want to try convincing people that it's as simple as that doesn't really say much more for her either.

Related reading:

• Juday may face Congress for Meralco Ad
• Enrile twits Judy Ann Santos for Meralco Ad

This blog, as well as my main (and personal) blog, has been listed in other blogs as "anti-BF". You can find those blogs easily enough when you type "bayani fernando for president", perhaps on the third or fourth pages of results. Then again, you can type "bayani fernando tarpaulin posters" on Google and you'll find this blog in the first page of results. Perhaps it's one of the reasons why this blog has been labeled by some as anti-BF, bayaran, "being in someone's employ" to attack BF.

Tsk tsk ... I don't really understand why some people should think that I need to be paid to show people what an ass BF is, when practically everyone else in his right mind thinks so too. Randy David thinks so. And so does Conrad de Quiros.

No, you don’t
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:51:00 05/27/2008

Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Bayani Fernando’s answer to criticisms about his posters and billboards teeming on the EDSA highway has been, well, typical Bayani Fernando. Last month, when the criticism grew plentiful and strident, he denied he was campaigning at all. You could see, he said, that in those posters and billboards he looked perfectly serious, even strict. Wait till you saw him smiling, he said. Then you’d know he was campaigning.

I’ve seen those posters and billboards and wondered what in hell they were doing across the length of EDSA. Those are the ones that look not unlike the ad of that movie, “Kung Fu Hustle,” where the “bida” [hero] has his arms crossed, one hand clasping an ax. Fernando has his arms folded across his chest, his face set in a slight frown, while slogans below proclaim that order or discipline (“kaayusan”) is the key to nationhood and progress.

But upping the ante or pushing his luck, he has come out with new posters and billboards that show him to be smiling at the world. Or so a TV news report reports. I haven’t seen them. They have apparently sprouted in Caloocan City, and so far have been confined there. But it’s not hard to imagine how pretty soon they’ll be overrunning Metro Manila, particularly the favorite street of both the angry and the ambitious, which is EDSA.

Fernando probably just thinks he’s cute. Well, it’s time we told him: No, you’re not.

Read Conrad de Quiros' entire column here.

I used to think that when a politician's reputation needed to be destroyed by his enemies, the opposing elements would hire people to write dirt about that politician. In BF's case the opposite is true. You'd have to hire someone to write something good about him, in the manner that ordinary people will believe, not in the "RAH RAH we love BF no matter what" style.

And that's the sad thing about BF's upstart candidacy. BF is so full of flaws that anyone who attempts to write anything good about him begins rather well, with the usual Marikina is the new Singapore angle. But after a post or two or three, nothing else follows because in truth, nothing good does.

Or maybe since a whole new slew of banners have appeared in various points of the metropolis, BF's rah rah boys just ran out of steam.