Covington: Victory?
THE other week a convoy of 21 trucks loaded with logs arrived at the Tagum City motorpool, timber confiscated by elements of the Anti-Illegal Logging Task Force from Agusan del Sur. Tagum Mayor Uy was on hand to welcome the haul in what the press hailed as 'another victory' for the task force...
Covington: Heads up!
THERE’S life down at the SP yet. Here's Councilor Melchor Quitain declaring that, as per Davao City Ecological Solid Waste Management Ordinance of 2010, after June 28 non-biodegradable plastic bags and polystyrene containers will no longer be allowed as food containers. A truly landmark...
Covington: Groundbreaking. Landmark. Pointless
'RABID dogs run wild!' 'Rabies infected bites on the increase!'
'I know, let's enact a law.'
Once again, probably because it requires no actual effort, the city is relying on paperwork rather than action to tackle an issue.
Covington: Indifference City
DID you see on Tuesday Davao Acting Mayor Rody Duterte ripping into a crowd of assorted government officials for non-performance? About time too, cried the next day's editorials.
My record in this department comes from applying to change the classification of a city lot from agricultural...
Covington: Flying down south
MISLEADING ad of the month comes from SilkAir who ran a series of half-page promotions for their Davao-Darwin route.
Whoa! This is for me. See the in-laws and relatives in Oz over Melbourne way before I or they pop our respective clogs and start pushing up the cogon grass. Fly to Darwin...
Covington: Don't hold your breath
“THE sidewalks are for the people, while streets are for the vehicles.”, Assistant City Administrator Erwin Alaparaque admitting that it is 'not really allowed to use public domain for businesses, especially sidewalks and streets'.
Covington: A big more
"TIME to pay a little more for energy": President Benigno Aquino.
Well Noy -- may I call you Noy? -- I can't speak for anyone else but for years I've been doing nothing else BUT pay a little more for energy. For example in January 2011 I was paying P6.52 per kilowatt hour. By June this...
Covington: Evictions
“HESITANT settlers” - Folks who object to their houses being pulled down around their ears while they are forcibly removed to somewhere they don't want to go (From the 'Samal Directory of Phrases avoiding the Unpleasant Truth'). Meanwhile Samal is sticking to its story that Barangay Tagbay beach...
Covington: Impunity is here
THIS is the Deputy Executive Director of the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority Gavino Barlin commenting on the adulterated fertilizer being sold by unscrupulous distributors – the farmers are hit three times when they purchase these adulterated fertilizers; they pay genuine prices for a fake...
Covington: Black
"YOU can have any color you like as long as it's not black."
Henry Ford almost said that when he introduced the Model T, but Councilor Braga, you being the transport person, why don't you introduce a special city tax for those who drive black vehicles or -- better still -- get the LTO to...
Covington: Pinch, punch...
IN A.D. 146 the city state of Carthage at last succumbed to the might of Rome and, making sure of the job, Rome ordered salt ploughed into the fields to poison the soil.
On Friday evening’s news and in Saturday’s newspapers we learnt of CIDG raids on a series of warehouses where bagged...
Covington: Shoot the messenger
DID you see videomaker Jimmy Sieczka on TV last week? Apologising? The poor guy was almost weeping in shame. What a sad crew you are for picking on someone who had the courage to stand up and speak out a few home truths. And because he's an outsider. I'll bet that if a top Cebu official had made...
Covington: Davao leads
A COUPLE of interesting headlines in Friday's paper -- 'PH universities out in world's ranking' and 'To pass or not to pass?' (About the practice of 'mass promotion' where students en masse are allowed to graduate to the next year regardless of whether they have attained the required educational...
Covington: Jimmy and Cleto
THE other night on the ABS-CBN early evening news, I caught an item concerning one “Jimmy” who had uploaded onto the Internet thingy a 14-minute video called “20 reasons why I dislike the Philippines”. It has, apparently, gone viral causing quite a stir. Here was ABS-CBN running their instant...
Covington: Let's not tell
SUN.STAR Davao's front-page photo on Saturday was of a pair of foreign-looking gentlemen enjoying a smoke at Osmeña Park -- there's the SP building hunched in the background -- blatantly ignoring our city's no-smoking in public places ordinance.
Covington: High Noon
THERE'S been a lot of internet server ads lately, all the big names, and all of them bragging about the supersonic download speeds of their latest gadgets but guess what -- they've stopped publishing the 'if' disclaimer. You know - like you'll only get this speed IF you're the only person in the...
Covington: A casual affair
ANOTHER oldie gets flattened on a pedestrian lane. Why? Probably because the out-of-town driver was unfamiliar with Davao's roads and didn't realize that the city's pedestrian lanes are of the invisible, unpainted variety.
Covington: 'R Castillo road project to take 7 months: DPWH'
TIME to buy a bicycle people. Fly in the face of our city's indifference to bicycling - ask them what happened to the much fan-fared bicycling ordinance - or, for that matter, their indifference to pedestrians. Have you noticed? Motorists get fine new-asphalted roads to cruise on while the city'...
Covington: Biltong
WHERE to start? Dead celebrity worship? Foreigners behaving badly? The impeachment circ... sorry, the impeachment trial? Or how about this headline on Wednesday -- "Kenyan nationals welcome at Araw ng Dabaw marathon?"
Covington: Rubbish roads
ROADS first and Tuesday I had a fine time bicycling up and down the new asphalt laid down on J.P. Laurel outside Victoria Plaza. Smooth as the proverbial baby's but why has this stretch of road been resurfaced which blatantly didn't need it?
Covington: Turtles plural
"BLACKLIST them!" cried the mayor.
"It's an insult to the people of Davao City!" thundered a DENR Regional Executive Director.
"More ink!" shrieked the press, determined to milk the issue for all its worth.
The "they" are a bunch of foreign missionaries who, because of their...
Covington: Swanky stores in swanky malls
STORM in a teacup this last week was a couple of items reporting how Presidential Advisor on Political Affairs Ronald Llamas was caught buying pirate DVDs at a Quezon market stall up there in manic Manila.
We've got a member of the Supreme Court living apparently way beyond his means, a...
Covington: Don't blame the mining
THERE you go. The much publicised 'International Conference on Mining in Mindanao' was no such thing, merely a get-together of the anti-mining mutual back-slapping association in it for the publicity, the publicity and oh, did I mention, the publicity.
Covington: Daylight robbery
ON MONDAY, there was a BZZZZ item commenting on freight services which gouge the recipient for extra cash even though the sender has paid delivery door to door.
Covington: Uniform fatigue
A SEETHING mass of people is pummeling at the doors. They're desperate - shoving, shouting, screaming, and waving their arms in the air. Is it the gone-viral video of passengers on the ill-fated cruise chip Concordia scrambling for lifeboats?
