AT LAST! Someone at the City Council has had the brilliant idea of opening the rear side gate so that folks can walk in safety along the back of the building instead of braving the traffic of Magallanes (The risking of life and limb thanks to morons parking on the sidewalk area).

Snag, of course, is that the sandwich vendors are sneaking back in (expelled at the height of the bomb scares) and soon it'll be back to the usual city standard of right of way for the vendors three-fourths, right of way for pedestrians one-fourth if they're lucky.

Cebu inmates' tribute to Michael Jackson
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Over the road the land registry people have moved into their new building. I poked my nose into the door for a quick look but I'll miss the hurly-burly of their temporary quarters down at the Hall of Justice. The corridor waiting room, elbowing aside baon vendors, watching rain drip into the foyer from a leaky roof (Before the initiative of course) and spotting Tek Ocampo and Melanie Sevarino in the flesh. Happy days.

On Sunday we learnt that mall developments and so on will, in future, be required to submit to the council plans of how they're going to handle the traffic they generate. And about time too.

Thought #1. How about no left or right turns crossing the flow of traffic at mall entrances? Make the traffic drive to the next roundabout, go round, and approach the mall on the near side of the road and -- wait a minute -- we don't have any roundabouts do we? Wouldn't work here anyway with our idiot motorists who jam themselves into the nearest gap without a thought for traffic flow.

Thought #2. All this investing in condos and malls benefits rich folks only. Folks with money to spend. The 10 percent or whatever of the population. Why not oblige moneyed developers to set aside a proportion of their lot for low cost housing. Insist they build a modest low cost subdivision. Help reduce the city's shantyvilles-by-the-sea. Whoa. Too radical. Good idea though.

On Saturday, under the we got mail headline, there was more Tamugan River tosh, this time from an outfit called Record Foundation Incorporated.

"In addition, because Tamugan River is also recharging the Dumoy aquifer..."

Where do NGOs get this stuff? A river -- can we all get this straight please -- is nothing but a transport system. It recharges nothing except the ocean. The Dumoy aquifer is recharged by rain falling within its catchment area. Period.

Doesn't anyone at these supposedly concerned organizations put their nose in a book, checking that what they're publishing "in the public's interest" is actually right? Week after week we read the same erroneous and misleading statements. No wonder NGOs have such a bad name.

Lastly lastly and Wacko Jacko has gone to the great recording studio in the sky. The man may have been a weirdo of the first order but he has left us some cracking music.