THE good news for the common tao is fuel prices continue to go down to the eternal joy of motorists from virtually all walks of life. Thus, budgets for family welfare should improve tremendously.
The bad news is traffic congestion continues to hound the metropolis to the endless misery of motorists, commuters and business establishments. The almost daily road roughs account for a staggering combined losses of as much as P2 billion a day in wasted commercial opportunities.
They paralyze manpower stuck in gridlocks, resulting in a massive meltdown in production, services and manufacturing. Grrr!
Whatever happened to the promise of the new police chief to assist the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and the local government units (LGUs) in improving traffic flow, particularly at Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (Edsa) and C-5, which are the main thoroughfares connecting the
vehicle-intensive North and South segments of the metropolis?
Traffic enforcers have become virtually as invisible as bugs that inhabit theater seats, when chokepoints at both Edsa and C-5 are as identifiable as the crocs and other corrupt inhabitants at the corridors of power.
Have you ever seen Francis N. Tolentino, the MMDA chief, untangle a traffic jam in person even just for once?
NO, not at all, the reason being that he is always practically out of town busy campaigning even as he has yet to seal a slot in Manuel A. Roxas II’s senatorial slate for 2016.
Exasperated, multiawarded broadcaster Ted Failon has personally initiated a text-blast brigade calling for an NVM (No Vote Movement) against Tolentino if and when he finally runs for senator in May.
Hell, he can’t fix traffic, heck he might yet fake laws to inflict more harm on the people paying for his salary all these years.
All-time low oil prices
THERE is a global surplus of oil beginning in June, triggering a drastic decline, if not an all-time low, in gas and diesel prices. It is good for end-consumers, but not to those engaged in the oil business—naturally. Already, pundits predict crude may slide to as low as $32 a barrel, which was last seen during the world financial crisis since the 1986 global glut and could plunge growth targets to record lows.
Said Ric Spooner, a Sydney-based finance analyst: “The extent of excess [oil] supply is not something that demand is going to grow into in the near future. If we’re going to avoid downward pressure on prices, it’s going to have to come from production cuts.”
What he meant, of course, was to reduce oil production levels in a bid to maintain sanity in the supply and demand equilibrium. I don’t know. Oil has always been the world’s barometer for either global growth or groan, yes, but the irony is, it is also the undisputed No. 1 trigger for greed for those who control its flow to humankind.
I still believe it is all right that fuel prices are constantly on the downswing as this would redound to a continuous easing to the ever-tightening noose on daily existence, especially to our perennially marginalized masses of people. But has the lowering of gas prices translated into reduced prices of basic commodities, particularly food?
As I was writing this, not yet. And there was even food shortage in typhoon-hit Northern Luzon—government barely visible there at the height of Typhoon Ineng while P-Noy, Binay, Roxas and, yes, Grace Poe were busy campaigning in Cebu.
Heaven, help us.
Boracay burns in commerce
NICE to know that Boracay burns in commerce. I was there last weekend and, despite driving rains and howling winds, the world-famed island resort teemed with tourists both foreign and local. Koreans and Taiwanese now dominate the invading kind. Folks say the Caucasians, mostly those from Europe, have dwindled in numbers.
“Most Europeans have married locals and stayed here for good,” said the hotel’s security guard.
True. Writer Sol J and I bought a loaf of bread from the English Bakery owned by a Briton married to a native. Boracay is so crowded even if it’s not supposed to be peak season.
“There is no more peak season here,” said the guard. “All year-round, we are fully booked.”But while money flows in Boracay like waterfalls, the roads there are mostly as dilapidated as the reputation of many politicians. At the slightest drop of rain, most of Boracay’s main artery, as tight as a shoestring budget, gets quickly flooded almost knee-high. The floods take hours to subside—proof of a faulty drainage system.
And yet, every day, Boracay earns millions of pesos as each visitor pays P100 as “environment fee” and P60 “terminal fee.”
You suspect of coffer-raiding and hanky-panky from top officialdom down to Boracay subalterns, ask Ted Failon. He’s got dossiers.
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