Bayaning hu(bad)

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Bayaning hu(bad)
Sunday, 04 13, 2008

There is something in one’s ambition to become president of the country that drives him to arrogance, hypocrisy and ignorance. Consider the case of Bayani Fernando.

It was not too long ago that Fernando, then city mayor, was heaped praises for performing cosmetic surgery on Marikina. With force, and possibly with the same zeal of the devotees who propelled the original Juggernaut - the frightful form of the Hindu Krishna dragged through the streets on a chariot that crushed everything and everyone that got in the way - the elements of the Fernando Juggernaut swept across that haven of leather artisans, cleared its sidewalks, demolished squatters’ structures, and tore down unsightly billboards. Result - Marikina, visually, was acclaimed as a model, clean and green, where traffic was no longer a mess, and right-of-way restored to the pedestrian.

Fernando was so successful at his beautification efforts, that the position of public works secretary was offered to him. He declined. As loose talk would have it then, he was afraid he might not be able to “moderate the greed,” of his associates involved in construction.

So, very modestly, Fernando must have begged: “Ma’am, could I instead be the MMDA chairman? I promise, you’re going to come up smelling like roses.”

And so it came to pass that Fernando was anointed, and he sallied forth with unrelenting zeal to duplicate the Marikina experience. He swept the metropolis of its grime and filth. He drove away the poor enterprising yahoo who had set up shop on the sidewalk. He tore down those billboards proclaiming the virtue of this or that product instead of extolling the failed achievements of Her Excellency GMA. He rewrote the traffic rules. But alas! - Fernando and his minions went overboard, broke a lot of heads, and, in their efforts to set right a perceived wrong, ran over the entitlements of the helpless many. Well, as my critic Leina de Legaspi says, “Ignorance of the law goads the MMDA people either to break or enforce it.”

Unmindful of his critics, Fernando is on a pink pinch-run these days. Pink urinals to do away with the stink and stains left by those who simply could not hold their bladders any longer; pink pedestrian overpasses that have not deterred those who must jaywalk even when cops are around; pink covered commuter stops; pink chicken wire fences to keep the busses to their lanes; pink lines to delineate bicycle lanes and prevent pedestrians from straying off the curb; pink road signs all over, that all cause foreigners to rhapsodize what a gay country the Philippines must be! Right on, Metro guwapito!

Metro Manila indeed does look guwapo with those pink concrete “toblerones” at the U-turns of the highways, which in turn are festooned with posters announcing with sickening regularity that we have to thank GMA for many things, including the claimed affordable yet nowadays non-existent rice we have to line-up for. Indeed, the pinch runner for you-know-who has been on a record-breaking run. And more news: he is going to make the run for himself in 2010!

Empty success has gone to the empty head of Fernando To bolster his belief that he is a presidential material, he has adorned EDSA with tarpaulin posters, his full visage hogging three-fourths space of the posters, with a message too corny to anyone, who would rather be seduced by the message of other posters alongside that Fernando mug. The posters, assuredly, pose as distractions to motorists. But Fernando’s purpose is too obvious.

His posters tell us that Fernando these days is sorely ravaged by the triple demons of arrogance, hypocrisy and ignorance. The arrogance and hypocrisy shine plainly through that face in those posters, revealing his exaggerated sense of self-importance, and his claim to moral standards to which he himself does not conform. What about ignorance? Well, doesn’t he know that 2010 is still too far off, that it’s illegal to campaign this early, and that he’s bound to put off voters by that mug photoshopped ala some small-time movie actor? (Leina de Legaspi says it would have done him better had Fernando posed like Piolo Pascual in that deodorant advertisement.)

What makes Fernando think he is good enough to be president? He should think again. He is not in the mould of anyone in the bankrupt roster of Lakas-Kampi or among the brilliant opposition frontrunners. His experience is limited. I will concede, though, that he is aggressive in solving the banes afflicting Metro Manila, where he has confined himself in his entire life. And neither will his dancing or singing “prowess” do him any good. Hasn’t he realized that the reviews he got for gyrating ala John Travolta or parroting Placido Domingo were written by sycophants?

How much in taxpayers’ money went to those posters? It must be substantial, and that exposes all the more his lack of delicadeza. My friends say the cost could very well underwrite the construction of one elevated U-turn, or three pink (again!) pedestrian overpasses.

If Fernando insists in running, I will push my driver Boy Arroyo - yes, that’s his name, and it amuses me that I can bestow my Ilocano epithet on an “Arroyo” whenever he screws up - to file his certificate of candidacy. That way, Fernando will have the time of his life justifying before my Arroyo his inane traffic policies, and focus the campaign on the utter nonsense that has become of our presidential elections.

Bayani – meaning, “hero” - is his first name. One might think he must be God’s gift to Metro Manila. But with those posters, in the midst of the traffic he has failed to alleviate, or the filth and the disorder that still abound, that name might as well mean something else worse than that which dangles between a horse’s thighs. He - and the administration he represents - is coming out with the smell of…pink…rotting…roses.



For comments about this website:Webmaster@tribune.net.phThe Daily Tribune © 2008