| BF told to solve EDSA traffic first before aiming for presidency |
Chairman Bayani Fernando of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) was urged Sunday to solve the traffic along EDSA before aiming for the presidency and offering to tackle bigger problems. "If he cannot untangle the daily traffic gridlock along EDSA, I don't think he should offer himself to run the country, which is facing bigger and more serious problems," Rep. Florencio "Bem" Noel of the party-list group An Waray said. Noel said if Fernando is able to cut travel time along EDSA from Quezon Avenue in Quezon City to Pasay City by half, he would earn for himself bragging rights that would be a big asset in his presidential aspiration. Noel, however, said instead of easing EDSA traffic, Fernando and his MMDA people "have become part of the problem." He cited the concrete islands and pink metal fences MMDA erected near Greenhills in San Juan and in front of Camp Aguinaldo and near New York Street in Quezon City, which he said have effectively eaten up one lane of the busy highway. Noel pointed out that various groups of travelers and vehicle owners, traffic policemen and local officials have blamed these concrete barriers and pink metal fences for the constriction of the road and for innumerable vehicular accidents, many of which have resulted in deaths. "It's bad enough that they employ a trial-and-effort, hit-miss approach to the traffic problem. But what is worse is that when it is very evident that such approach does not work, they insist on pursuing it and do not make the necessary correction," Noel stressed. He said the islands and pink fences that Fernando built on EDSA are as useless as the passenger loading and unloading bays and steel fences he built along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City. "As in EDSA, these loading and unloading bays and the trademark pink fences are a constriction in Commonwealth. Now, they are even building traffic islands there to further constrict the highway," he said. Noel added Fernando and his people are apparently creating traffic chokepoints in areas where there are none. Fernando, for his part, said his projects in the MMDA do not make him unpopular among the poor. He recalled his stint as mayor of Marikina City where he received the same criticisms from groups supposedly representing the urban poor who had opposed his clearing operations and demolition of squatter colonies. "There is the thinking poor and the unthinking poor," Fernando said. He said his approach in Marikina for making it one of the cleanest cities in Metro Manila will just be the same for the whole country. Fernando cited the case of former President Joseph Estrada when the action-star turned public servant won by a huge margin when he ran for president in 1998. He said Estrada won by a large margin because "the 'masa' and the rich" voted for him. Fernando said the thinking masa is bigger than the unthinking masa that "I would have not been voted three times in Marikina if they say that the masa is not with me." Fernando has volunteered himself to be the presidential candidate in the 2010 election of the administration Lakas party, to which he belongs. Other personalities who are potential Lakas standard-bearers include Vice President Noli de Castro and Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. According to Fernando, the Lakas party is currently choosing between him and Belmonte as the party's standard-bearer for the 2010 elections. There are also reports that party officials are courting Sen. Loren Legarda to join their selection process for their presidential candidate. Legarda and de Castro are political opponents. She lost the vice presidency to him in 2004, when she bolted Lakas to be the running mate of the late actor Fernando Poe Jr. She still has a pending election protest against de Castro. In the May 2007 election, Legarda returned to the Senate as a candidate of the United Opposition. Legarda is one of several opposition senators eyeing the presidency in 2010. The others are Senators Manuel Villar Jr., Panfilo Lacson, Mar Roxas, and Francis Escudero. They will have to slug it out with Estrada, their de facto leader who expressed interest in running again for the top office despite assertions made by constitutional experts that former presidents are not qualified for another term. A military-backed people power revolt drove Estrada out of the presidency in January 2001, paving the way for then Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's ascension to power. Four months ago, the Sandiganbayan convicted the deposed president of plunder and sentenced him to life in prison. Barely a month later, Mrs. Arroyo pardoned Estrada. __________________________________________________ By Jess Diaz, with Michael Punongbayan, The Philippine Star |
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