Sometimes I just love the Philippine Daily Inquirer. This is one of those times.

Early bird and heel

It’s a case of too early the hero for Bayani Fernando, it seems. The Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman has made his political intentions clear by plastering his face all over MMDA-managed traffic islands and posts some two years before the presidential election, and he is threatening to do the same thing all over the country. The self-promotion is calculated and well-engineered (it’s not for nothing that Fernando is an engineer and construction businessman). It ensures he’ll be in the public’s reckoning when the time to pick presidential candidates comes around. If he does not make it, he can still be in the running as a running-mate or falling short again, as a candidate for the Senate, that chamber of presidential pretenders.

Fernando is already a pretender and interloper—at the expense of the public. And his pretentiousness knows no bounds. In the run-up to the Ninoy Aquino Day and National Heroes Day, the MMDA distributed stickers and other paraphernalia bearing his name, which means “hero” in English. Motorists put the stickers on their windshields and those who violated traffic rules were reportedly treated leniently by MMDA traffic enforcers. Pressed to explain the stickers, the Land Transportation Office said it’s illegal to put just any sticker on windshields and asked motorists to remove them.

Bravo, PDI!

Read on at the Inquirer Online.

This is not the first time this has happened. Having said that you think one would have learned from past experience. Either Jesli Lapus does not believe in experience or he has a very short term memory.

Classes today have been suspended, again much too late for it to do any good. As a parent who cares about her kids' health I did not even look at the news before I told my high school student to stay home. I don't have to turn on the TV to know it was best to keep my son at home. All I had to do was look out the window.

Jesli Lapus, on the other hand, probably does not have windows to look out of, and if indeed he has any he does not know how to interpret dark clouds and warnings from the weather bureau.

I suppose he thinks it's better for children to go to school and get stranded there, or come home soaked in the rain, exposing themselves to infection.

I don't think I shouldn't be surprised though, that the DepEd head should think like that. He who issues a memorandum two weeks AFTER classes have started saying that only children five years of age and above will be admitted in public schools thus forcing my four year old daughter, who had already been enrolled, to leave her class; he who takes a vacation to the states ostensibly to visit family AND to watch Pacquiao's fight, just after Typhoon Frank has ravaged the country.

Anyone who can serve this government as a cabinet member must have a loose screw somewhere; after all, we do have a President who is screwing up the country.

First in line of a series of quick interviews.

This Mayamy Bus sports the Bayani stickers that have been criticized by quite a few commuters during this long weekend, and, quite curiously lauded by no less than Claire de la Fuente, President of the Integrated Metropolitan Bus Operators Association (IMBOA). I chanced upon this one parked along the sidewalk on A. Santos Avenue in Paranaque, near the MMDA spotters booth. Buses who ply the NAIA-Grotto/Fairview route take their morning break here.

After snapping a few photos of the front of the bus, I went off to the side and had a quick chat with the driver and conductor.

Me: Mga bossing, konting chismis lang, totoo ba yung nabalitaan kong kung me Bayani sticker ang bus, hindi na hinuhuli ng MMDA?

Driver & Conductor: Ay hindi naman po mam. Yung mga pasaway hinuhuli parin. Pero kung minor lang naman, pinalalampas na nila. Di po tulad ng dati, konting pagkakamali lang tinetiketan na nila.

Me: San nyo po ba nakuha yang sticker na yan?

D&C: Ay mam di po namin alam, basta bigla nalang sumipot yan dyan.

Me: Yung operator nyo ba ang naglagay?

D&C: Opo mam.

Interesting ... mileage for the chairman's name in exchange for leniency. Indeed, quite a bit of the bus driver's daily income is eaten up if he is slapped with a fine for a traffic infraction. Having the Bayani sticker on his front windshield is like having a talisman against overzealous blueshirts.

Surprisingly though, while the Bayani stickers are regularly seen on buses plying the EDSA route, they were almost unanimously absent on buses along Avenida Rizal and Taft Avenue. The only time I saw the stickers along this route today was on the BBL Liner Terminal near Buendia. But the JAC Liner buses on the terminal opposite did not the Bayani stickers. At least not yet.

"Kung kay Chairman Fernando yan, marami sigurong operator na natutuwa kay Chairman dahil iba na yung ugali niya ngayon."

-- Claire de la Fuente, President, Integrated Metropolitan Bus Operators Association

A big 180 degree turnabout for Ms. de la Fuente, whose wikipedia page states:

... de la Fuente was elected president of the "Integrated Metro Bus Operators Association" (IMBOA), whose members make up 70 percent of all bus operators in Metro Manila. In 2003, dela Fuente made headlines when she spearheaded a boycott of the color-coding scheme that the MMDA had imposed for a week on all public utility vehicles as part of a traffic experiment. The move put her at odds with the equally headstrong MMDA Chair Bayani Fernando.

Would Ms. dela Fuente care to elaborate just how "iba" is the "ugali" of the MMDA Chairman these days? Is it perhaps because buses who sport the Bayani stickers are now enjoying a relatively MMDA-free existence?

From the first time I saw these stickers I knew the MMDA Chairman had to have something to do with it. Even if it had become an ubiquitous term to refer to anyone who risks self for the betterment of others, the MMDA Chairman is milking the word BAYANI for all its worth to further his own betterment, thus making him the antithesis of the word.

The saddest thing about all this is, as I have mentioned in my other blog in comment to Rep. Roilo Golez's move to have the MMDA Chairman investigated, is this is what Bayani Fernando wanted in the first place.

Bayani Fernando knows that memory recall is everything when it comes to elections. People vote for those whose names they know. Whether they know the name Bayani to be good or bad is not the point. THEY JUST HAVE TO KNOW THE WORD.

And while the house on the Pasig remains silent on the piles of controversy surrounding this particular Cabinet member, it may also imply that the Palace's hands off policy on Bayani Fernando is simply Napoleonic.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

-- Napolen Bonaparte

Read full article on the ABS-CBN Website here.

Just when the BF fanatics are thinking I've finally run out of steam, here I am again.

Honestly, I did lie low for a bit, took a break from lambasting my favorite neighboor (misspelling intended) on EDSA; his office is just a block away across the street from mine. I even held off on expressing my opinion on these Philippine Flag + BAYANI stickers that have become ubiquitous on buses, airconditioned and otherwise, provincial and city.

Couple of mornings ago after having crossed the pedestrian overpass on Estrella, walking the short stretch before turning right under the Rockwell Flyover, I took this picture:



which confirmed my suspicion that the stickers are, indeed, the work of the MMDA Chairman in his numerous onerous ways to ingrain his name into the subconscious of the Filipino voter so that hopefully in 2010 ... you know the rest.

I had not been able to take my own pictures of buses sporting the Flag + Bayani sticker mainly because I had started a photo blog and thought there were better pictures to take. But then I thought I should get one to pair with the photo above so I turned to Google and typed "Bayani Fernando stickers on bus" and sure enough, I got quite a few results. It turned out that I wasn't the only one dissing the Chairman, and in less gracious words too.

Apparently buses who sport the sticker on their windshields are ignored by the MMDA. They are not flagged down for any traffic infractions. Hmmm, no wonder quite a few of those buses are horrendous smoke belchers, as apparently the MMDA has also given up on its anti-smoke belching crusade. Come to think of it, it's typical MMDA BF logic. If you can't stop smoke belching buses, give them Bayani stickers instead.

There are also a lot of videos on Youtube of the MMDA blueshirts texting while appearing to be on the job. Once at the SM Ayala bus stop an MMDA Blueshirt stood directly in front of our bus, preventing it from moving forward, while his co-blueshirt banged on the door shouting at the driver: "Hindi ka ba marunong magbasa ng Tagalog?" several times.

This was because our driver had tooted on his horn, and had apparently startled this MMDA door banger. I was sitting directly behind the driver, so I took out my camera and started snapping the blueshirt that was standing in front of the bus. He saw me and moved off to the side where I could no longer see him. Then I tried to take a picture of the door-banger but the bus conductor was in the way and all I got was a picture of his back. But when the doorbanger was told by his fellow-blueshirt that someone was taking pictures, the doorbanger retreated and left us to go on our way.