Fine, fine.

I raise a glass to our Public Works and Highways officials.

They should do that often—building/repairing roads in the Big City on holidays.

Now, if they can’t do it on holidays, they should do it at night—when 90 percent of the metropolis’s motorists are fast asleep in the comfort of their homes.

As it is today, many of our roadwork are still being done at daytime—which is a time when the nearly 12 million city folk are either on the road or about to leave home for work.

It’s about time we made it a habit to repair roads from deep in the night ’til dawn.  Most countries in the world do that because it is convenient for all, especially the common folk.

I don’t see any reason why we can’t do the same here.

 

Remembering Rene Cayetano

BEFORE he succumbed to cancer some years back, Sen. Rene “Compañero” Cayetano was waging a fight against parking fees at malls, hospitals and other establishments catering to the general public.

Are his two children who are now both senators themselves of the republic (Pia and Allan Peter) pursuing their father’s cause?

Already, our malls and hospitals are earning tons of money that is why like my late, lamented “Compañero Rene,” I consider the imposition of parking fees to customers an abomination, greed of the first degree.

You already give them huge profits by patronizing their establishments and yet, they squeeze more from your budget through parking fees. Even exorbitant now. A no-conscience act, indeed.

At the SM Megamall alone, you are required to pay P100 for “valet parking” at the periphery of the edifice.  If that isn’t a broad-day holdup, what is?

Why can’t they follow the example of hotels and big restaurants, where they give you free parking space when patronizing their joints?

In America and in many parts of the world, such parking fees do not exist.

Considering that we are not yet even halfway to becoming first-world, such act of collecting parking fees is utterly anti-people.

So, to reiterate my prayer, I hope Pia and Peter Allan Caye­tano do not put to waste their Dad’s pro-people move on the parking-fee issue.

 

Parking space first, vehicle second

AND, speaking of parking space once more, you can’t buy your own car if you can’t show proof that you have a parking lot for your vehicle.

That’s the law in Japan and isn’t that quite funny, if not weird?

Weird, because Japan is supposed to be the world’s No. 1 vehicle producer—and Toyota, too, being the world’s No. 1 automaker for quite some time now.

Yet, each car-owner must first show a legal document that he has a parking lot before he is allowed to purchase a vehicle.

In the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show, the president of Mitsubishi Motors Japan has sheepishly admitted:  “Before I could drive my own car [he has no personal driver, mind you] I needed to rent a space to prove that I can park my own car there.  And I could only afford to pay rent after I became the president of Mitsubishi.”

I cite this again in lieu of too many vehicles parked on the streets of Metro Manila—thousands of them, in fact, clog main arteries contributing incessantly to traffic jams plaguing the metropolis almost daily, except Good Friday, when the city folk flock to the country.

Otherwise, at night, the city’s roads become a giant parking lot, at times causing vehicular accidents as motorists lamentably crash into parked vehicles—at times causing instant deaths.

So, if I may make another prayer, will Pia and Allan Peter also include the “parking lot” concern if ever they revive their Dad’s advocacy on “no more parking fees” on malls and hospitals?

As St. Padre Pio counsels us, “Pray and next hope.…”

 

Alphard is lifestyle-changer

IF memory serves, the first shipment of Toyota Alphards to the Philippines numbered “only” 20.

You know what?

Sold out in no time.

The luxury van was exhibited in public at the Trade Center along Roxas Boulevard before it caught storm, although its media launch had already made an impact on the discriminating in this car-crazy republic of 93 million.

A friend of mine, the first time she saw the Alphard at the exhibition, fell prey to the “love at first sight” adage.

“It’s really a different kind of ride,” she enthused.

And my friend, already the owner of a “Dubai” Land Cruiser that she had bought of course from the “gray market,” had merely stayed inside the Alphard for maybe about two minutes after hopping into it at the exhibition hall.

“I felt some good vibes immediately after I had sat at the captain’s chair behind the driver’s seat,” she said.

Needless to say, she ordered one.

“For your friend? You got it, Al,” said Sonny Guerrero, the no-nonsense first vice president of Toyota Motor Philippines.

But for one reason or another, my friend changed her mind.

“I’m thinking of buying the Lexus SUV, instead,” she said.

Women.  They change decisions as quickly as a typhoon changes its course.

Anyway, when I had finally driven the Alphard during the just-ended long weekend to Tagaytay (thanks to Tonyo Silva), the van proved to be really a lifestyle-changer.  It makes you restructure your taste for rides—in a flash, almost.

Thus, when my lady-friend called me up again to say she had changed her mind yet and would want an Alphard anew, I tried to get one quick.

No luck.

The second batch of shipment was likewise sold out.

“Duh,” she sighed.

That was last year.  Up to now, she has yet to own one.

Women.  As unpredictable as the weather, indeed.

 

Pee stop  On September 4, Luth Magturo and his son, Lukey, 5, are expected to jet in from Los Angeles, California.  Luth, an engineer who drives a Prius in L.A., is the brother of Mike, who is due to walk the aisle with beauteous Candy Neri on September 10.  The Honda SUV-driving Tony Magturo is due to plane in on September 8 from Chicago, Illinois, completing the reunion of the three great and glorious sons of Jun and Ofel Magturo of Project 7 and Calauag, Quezon.  Cheers!