‘Moreno needs to reorganize the notorious Manila Traffic and Parking Bureau, which resumed its brazen extortion operations after he left as mayor.’
ISKO Moreno has his hands full trying to solve numerous problems that occurred under Manila’s past administration. The recent massive flooding in the city was largely caused by half of the pumping stations that broke down.
Moreno said two congressmen should be held accountable for what he said was the apparently malversed amount of some P600 million earmarked for the operations and maintenance of the pumping stations. He said one of them even had the temerity to blame Department of Public Works and Highways officials. Moreno said the congressman often interfered with the agency’s work and withheld the necessary budget for major repairs of the 17 pumping stations.
He said that P49 million was spent on a barangay hall and P60 million on a basketball court, all without any building permits. Moreno has ordered the immediate demolition of the barangay hall that was illegally erected on a sidewalk and right in front of a public high school. Two other barangay halls built on sidewalks were also demolished.
Moreno also exposed what he said was the extortion racket of barangay officials victimizing street vendors, which explains why illegal vendors have been virtually embedded in countless sidewalks in Manila. He told reporters that two tong collectors had been caught in the act and arrested.
Moreno needs to reorganize the notorious Manila Traffic and Parking Bureau, which resumed its brazen extortion operations after he left as mayor. Jeepney drivers and operators, along with taxi drivers, have repeatedly denounced the mulcting traffic enforcers since the time of then-Mayor Erap Estrada. One of them was personally apprehended by Moreno himself while extorting from a motorist at Padre Burgos St. in Intramuros. Two others were caught on video receiving P1,200 from an apprehended truck driver.
Since then, people have observed a notable change in the MTPB.
The chaotic scenes of vendors hanging on to their personal belongings while trying to fight off demolition teams tearing down their makeshift stores or eateries should also be a cause of concern for the charismatic and pro-poor Yorme. Such episodes regularly going viral were largely the consequence of the vendors’ subservience to long-time extortionists masquerading as barangay and city hall officials under the past administration.
Instead of enforcing city ordinances and instilling discipline on the streets and sidewalks, these errant officials have allowed and encouraged this pestering and defiant subculture of poverty, wrongdoing and mendicancy.
Yorme should regard them also as victims of exploitation and harsh politics. Suddenly deprived of shelters, their lives have been rendered more miserable and disgraced by the recent typhoons and widespread flooding in Metro Manila. That should drive the good Mayor’s abundant sense of compassion and kindness to provide for their immediate and basic needs during this lowest point in their lives.
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From the FB post of Atty Joel Dizon: “Ferdinand Marcos, (the father) may have had fatal intentions towards his political arch-enemies, like Ninoy Aquino. But in fairness, he did not harbor indifferent genocidal sentiments towards any social demographic.
“On his watch, recall that Duterte declared war initially against the descamisados suspected of shooting crack-cocaine in shabu ‘tiangges’ in the distressed communities of the inner cities.
“Later on, his ‘drug war’ morphed into a drug farm – so his minions sought to eliminate anybody with a big mouth that could blow the lid off how the Davao mafia had managed to harness a national scourge of a drug trade into a hush-hush milking cow nurtured by state-sponsored homicidal impunity.
“In contrast, all that the most-motivated BBM bashers could roll out against him are a bunch of tired, iffy urban legends of him sniffing coke. But from the first days in Malacanang as the reincarnation of his father, there has been this uniform observation that he did not exhibit the kind of remorseless ferocity of Marcos Sr.
“I’m not giving him love in the sense that I extol him for some nobility he may not have. But I have just pondered this in the last few days in the light of people’s reactions to news that Senators Kiko Pangilinan and Bam Aquino are coalescing with the Senate majority – in other words, aligning with the Marcos political machinery.
“The Kakampinks are dismayed, the Dilawanas in utter disbelief? But is that really so bad?”
