EDIFICE COMPLEX
Excuse me while I unsheathe my claws.
My colleague, Sandra, has a little request to whoever is in charge of Mandaue’s traffic management at the foot of the Mandaue –Mactan bridge.
Please open Cabahug St., which is currently a one way street towards the Ouano Wharf, so vehicles can use this alternate road towards the bridge. Sandra commutes daily between Lapulapu and Mandaue, and everytime it rains traffic congestion in that area worsens due to flooding. The bottleneck? The huge welcome arc.
We Filipinos have this edifice complex. We have a penchant for building imposing structures. We are easily impressed by glass, concrete and steel.
We judge the competence and performance of our elected officials by the number of buildings, roads and bridges built during their term. Never mind if the primary responsibility of officials like congressmen is to prepare and enact laws. The way they fought for the retention of their pork barrel only proves that without these funds for public works projects, their constituents are less likely to appreciate whatever bills they authored or voted on.
Dili makita ang ilang agi.Kung wa’t tulay maghimo ta’g tulay. Kung wa’y sapa, maghimo ta’g sapa.
Those short on memory are now saying that the Marcoses can’t be all that bad – after all, if not for Imelda we won’t have these beautiful Cultural Center of the Philippines, the Folk Arts Theater and Film Center. They forget the amount of money diverted from the foreign loans and aids for these extravagant projects. Which WE are probably still paying for in taxes, while their Swiss bank accounts are earning interests.
Another case in point: when DYRC asked listeners to air their opinion regarding Erap’s plans to visit Mindanao, one caller suggested that he drop by Cebu and look at the bad roads at a subdivision in Mactan. She was not sure if the road was a private or public road, but she hoped Erap can do something about it. Another caller wanted him to visit the site of the “aborted” South Reclamation project.
See? We think Cebu’s pockmarked roads are in that same category with the peace and order situation in Mindanao that it requires the president’s attention.
So we think that politicians who are good in public works projects make good leaders. The ones who believe that most are politicians themselves. It’s not enough that the projects will address a specific problem. These must also be high-profile, high-impact, and high-budget. Why plant trees in the watershed areas when we can build a dam? Bet you, like many similar projects elsewhere and in the past, they will later whine “we have no means to maintain this facility.”
It’s the same scenario at the national level. It would have been more practical to relocate people from the path of the lahar, but we got megadikes because then government has got to show something for its efforts. Yep, high-profile, high-impact, costly but still unable to withstand Man’s greed and the forces of Nature.
Mahilig man gud ta sa pa-porma-porma. Window-dressing. Flash over substance. We equate construction projects as signs of progress, and a boon to the local economy. How ironic then that construction sites only seem to produce squatter colonies. If that is progress, how is it that when the project is done the squatters remain there and multiply. Where did they come from?
Don’t lay it all on the government. We are all to blame for this mess. Why is it that we believe that we can solve our social and environmental problems with engineering?
High unemployment? Let’s hire more people for this road project. Flooding in the city streets? Let’s put in bigger culverts! Of course, when the project is done people are jobless again but refuse to lave the project site. Of course people are also quick to blame the politicians and engineers for the lousy design and construction.
We are only fooling ourselves if we expect our social and environmental problems will be solved by bags of cement, steel bars and cables and lumber. If we can’t remember our science classes, let’s exercise some common sense: water seeks its own level, tree branches and roots can crack through pavements, no culvert can hold all the floodwaters if our mountains are denuded, winds will topple billboards, and megadikes are no match for the rampaging lahar.
Common sense being a rare commodity, it is no wonder people still disregard the laws of Nature and insist on costly, palliative fixes.
Don’t they get it? We can’t change the laws of Nature, but we can change human nature. So quit bugging Erap on the state of roads in your neighborhood.
February 5, 1999