Tuesday, January 15, 2008 Ledesma: Don't try Inday Sara By Jun Ledesma Sunbursts
WHERE the Department of Public Works and Highways failed, Vice Mayor Inday Sara appears to be succeeding. I am not referring to the failed construction of the Bankerohan Bridge, I am talking of another failed attempt of DPWH to dismantle illegal advertising billboard structures that are mushrooming all over the city.
I am glad that VM Inday Sara has shown her teeth over unmitigated construction of billboards even right in the midst of populated areas. We will be able to test her mettle here because not even her father, the "lone man standing against druglords," was able to clean the city of those giant billboards waiting for a freak tornado to topple right on the bedrooms of houses underneath. You would notice however that most of these menacing billboards are right along the national highways just a few inches from the pedestrian lanes but gingerly sitting on rooftops.
Problem lies in the lackadaisical or "ningas-cogon" enforcement of the law. When it come to that DPWH exemplifies itself as the uncontested non-performing agency. What happens next is that the law and local laws and regulations are subsequently tested and abused.
This is exactly what happens with the order of acting Davao City Vice Mayor to dismantle illegal billboards. Those who had these constructed must have thought that the attention given on the billboards will just pass away. So they just stayed on until VM Inday Sara must have forgotten it and they go on constructing another unit in another area unmindful of the hazards to residents and pedestrians.
DPWH Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane had once ordered illegal billboards dismantled after a strong typhoon sent many of these hurtling down in highways and homes in Metro Manila. After tearing down one or two billboards, the enthusiasm waned. He did the same thing in Davao City. He came, he saw a few dismantled but as soon as he turned his back the giant advertising display panels are back this time even bigger.
Each time I drive my kids to and back from Ateneo, I always look up with fear at those cluster of towering advertising structures at the foot of Bankerohan Bridge. All those structures are illegal and DPWH and the City Government knows this. I never trust those angular bars. I have seen how sturdier steel structures than what we have can easily be twisted and felled by gush of winds. I always hope that none of these will fall on anyone's kids otherwise don't blame DDS if some dead bodies will float in Bankerohan.
We do not have typhoons here but now and then we have freak twisters that can even lift slabs of cement. I saw this happens in Cagayan de Oro City years back. The freak tornado started somewhere in Davao del Norte, leveled over a 100 hectares of Cavendish bananas in Tadeco, razed what ever vegetation and houses along its way and all the way to Cagayan de Oro City where its fury lifted a raised cement pavement before it exited to the sea.
But we need not wait for a freak tornado to happen. Now and then we have a share of strong gush of winds that topple trees and billboards. I saw this happened near NCCC, another one close to Redemptorist Church and Citi Hardware in Bajada. A whiff of wind even knocked over ad structures in that Bankerohan area with steel and tarpaulin falling on the rooftops of houses at SIR. Only minor injuries happened. Lucky indeed were the victims because those rusting steel did not find the mark on their sleeping children.
It is good that Inday Sara flex her muscles as these structures are mostly illegal but so difficult to deal with for reasons I cannot comprehend.
It used to be that the majestic Mt. Apo is so visible and imposing on the cloudless daybreak from any point in the city. These days, the towering advertising structures have successfully covered that beautiful scenery with ugly commercialism that is not about to disappear in the horizon, unless Inday Sara acts on it decisively. I will get to know this when I can safely drive my kids to school and home.
BTW, Sagrex Foods, Inc. will be inaugurating its mulit-million Saba Banana Processing Plant in Tibungco on January 18, Friday. Sagrex processing plant prides of the latest technology to process saba bananas and the first of its kind in Mindanao. Its president, Ferdinand Maranon, has established a network of export markets targeting Filipino expats and OFWs and other Asians. Ferdie, may your tribe increase!
