Saturday, December 16, 2006 Ledesma: They're back, Mayor By Jun Ledesma Sunbursts
YES, the billboards are back! In fact some never left at all, daring not only the Department of Public Works and Highways but also the City authority and the mayor perhaps.
It appears that some smart alecks in the advertising industry are leaning on someone influential or they just do not care who sits in City Hall or who the hell is Director Dimas Suguilon of DPWH. Those giant billboards at the corner of Sandawa and MacArthur Highway are starting to resurrect again.
As though this is not enough, the gigantic billboards in the vicinity of the Agdao market and the busy rotunda at the end of Roxas boulevard remain untouched and had in fact increased in number and in sizes.
The bad thing about this is that it gives the impression that anyone can just ignore regulations. If the rules cannot be imposed on everybody then the authorities should have not dismantled a few billboards altogether.
Since they have countenanced the re-emergence of dismantled billboards and ignored the presence of other extremely hazardous advertising then they should not have ordered the dismantling of the billboards in the first place.
The half-baked enforcement of the rules and regulations only invites abuse. Mind you this will not only be confined to illegal and hazardous ad billboards this will affect other concerns where discipline and obedience are required.
No wonder slow moving pedicabs have started to ply busy secondary routes of motorists. No wonder motorcabs in Agdao and R. Castillo are back to the habit of occupying fast lanes. The rugby boys are back and they have become a common place. Call 911 and you do not get that much ballyhooed 5-minute to the scene after call action. Make it 10 long minutes because 911 has the habit of interviewing callers as though everyone is a prank.
The efficiency debilitates. Why? Because the simple task of dismantling billboards cannot even be done with precession. Why should I be priggish about this? It's because billboards are so visible. When the authorities say that these installations should go down but are ignored, then those who have the inclination to disregard the order or make "palusot" will do their thing.
Take the case of smoke belching. The LTO will not register your vehicle without a certificate that it went through a smoke emission test. But what happens is that some authorized firms obviously issues certifications to vehicles that are virtual smoke belchers. Our law enforcers, LTO in particular, knows this anomaly but then they conveniently ignore the hundreds of smoke-belching jeeps and buses that ply our city streets.
What am I leading at? Eventually, our no-smoking ordinance will be inutile. Have we heard of any apprehension of late? It's not that cigarette smokers obey the law, no one just bother anymore if they do.
I love this city. In every opportunity, I advertise it as the most peaceful, orderly and livable. I always attribute these qualities to the management style of Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. But the mayor cannot be in all of the places, emergencies and areas that need government authority's attention. The best that I can do as a concerned taxpayer and as a parochial columnist is to bring this decadence to his attention because I want to maintain and sustain a positive outlook of Davao City.
Maybe he can start by summoning DPWH Director Suguilon and inquire why the billboards are back and why hundreds have remained untouched. Now, if you haven't heard me, let me sing to you this tune:
"Dawn Zulueta is lovely, some wines are good, some pants are baggy and my son loves to wear them like crazy.
"I don't know why TV stations run those ads in wide and giant canvass screens, when I'm attuned to them to see a pious bishop scorns or why the coffee-3-in-1 display Piolo's limb that towers in the roof daring the eastern gale not girl to come blow me down to pretty children by the bay?"
