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Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Carvajal: Giving what you don't have
By Orlando P. Carvajal
There ought to be a law against painting on any government structure, like a skywalk, that condescending and insulting sign: Mr. Politico’s gift to the people.
A gift is something you own and which you give to another person voluntarily and out of the generosity of your heart. The philosophical saying “Nobody gives what he does not own” basically defines the essence of gift giving. You simply cannot give to anybody what does not belong to you.
How then can a skywalk be a politician’s gift to the people when the funds used to build it are people’s money? If at all, therefore, the structure should be the people’s gift to the politician since, first, it’s their money and, second, the politician, in all probability, made some money out of the project.
Moreover, a gift is a voluntary act of generosity whereas it is a politician’s obligation and responsibility to take care of the needs of their constituents and provide them with the necessary services. He cannot be generous with other people’s money and, worse still, brag about it. He can only waste it or spend it responsibly out of a sense of duty for the purpose it was intended.
No wonder that many of these structures are hopelessly useless and a complete waste of people’s money.
Take our skywalks again. If you are to be rational about them, they should have been built with the safety and convenience in mind of, in the order of priority, children, the sick and elderly, the differently-abled and the rest of pedestrians who are strong and healthy.
But nobody uses them. A skywalk is too much trouble for the strong and healthy who can more easily dart across the street. The sick and elderly would rather risk life and limb in ground traffic than court serious injury trying to climb the steep and forbidding stairs of a skywalk.
For the differently-abled, of course, anybody can see there is just no conceivable way their wheelchairs can climb those stairs. And the children? They go where their adult companions take them, usually not through the skywalk.
So what are these skywalks if the people they’re intended for cannot use them? The answer is simple. These structures are the politician’s inexpensive yet permanent campaign billboards. Inexpensive for him because he is not using his money but expensive for the people because their money has built something they cannot use.
In the next skywalk, let’s have ramps instead of stairs so the sick, the elderly and the differently-abled can use it. And, please, can we do away with the sign “Mr. Politico’s gift to the people?” It is so disgustingly condescending and downright dishonest, in poor taste, at the very least.
(September 28, 2005 issue)
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