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On being gwapo and living in a jungle condo

Gwapo!

The Philippine Daily Inquirer yesterday had this editorial entitled "Ugly" about Metro Manila Development Authority Chairman's Bayani (BF) Fernando's tarpaulins on EDSA. This editorial would have been on target if it didn't dish out another round of innuendos on BF.

That BF isn't ugly is beyond debate (I don't know him that well to say he is vain). I have met him on several occassions and he strikes me as a dandy and to some extent a fop. My brother-in-law works with Fernando on many projects and according to him BF buys the best shampoos and hairsprays. No wonder he can keep that coiffure intact during 1) crisis situations and 2) disasters that hit the Metro!

Not even Queen Gloriana can keep an intact coiffure during her stressful situations!

The politicians who would like to rip Fernando's tarpaulins can hold no candle to BF's gwapo. Can Rambotito be called gwapo? Can Roilo Golez be as gwapo as BF?

Fernando's turf and river can be called gwapo. The streets have nary a pothole or a bump. And there isn't any trash on the streets or even street kids. The river has fish (even if these were of the Janitor kind!).

In contrast Rambotito's city even its CBD has trash on the streets, streetkids and potholes!

And forget about comparing Paranaque with Marikina!

The Army has this aphorism, do good, feel good and look good! Fernando lives up to it. He does good and obviously feels good and his turf and person, looks good.

If Fernando wants to be a dandy then let him be. Whether his tarpaulins are illegal or not is something that shouldn't be held against him if the wants to be gwapo. The Innuendo has to separate the dandy from what politicians always do, plaster their ugly faces all over the city.

BTW, the PDI is wrong. Not only Mayor Marides Fernando (BF's spouse), his mother and blind supporters consider BF as gwapo. My mom who is very critical of some of his policies find him gwapo. My mother ain't a blind supporter, Philipine Daily Innuendo!

Condo in the Jungle!

There are disadvantages and advantages of living in a jungle. The advantage is the view and the disadvantage is that snakes and other creepy nasties can easiy crawl up your bed!

And now we see a photo of a condo under construction in the Subic Bay rainforest.

The only way out of the brouhaha of a Korean shipbuilding firm building a condo in the middle of the Subic jungle is to abandon it. Let the condo be swallowed by the jungle.Who knows it may add to the tourist attractions of the free port, something like the a lost city of capitalism, the set of the predicted run of Omega Man type of Hollywood dishes.

The SBMA's regulatory agencies such as its ecology center should be held to explain. Former SBMA chair and now Senator Dick Gordon says that the site had been cleared of trees even when the Americans had run of the place. But that isn't an excuse. Why should they construct there when there are other areas in the freeport or in nearby Olongapo where they can build? The SBMA isn't a territory separate from the Republic, why should it be exempt from strict regulations applied to other areas of the country?

But of course Gordon has an axe to grind against his immediate successor at the freeport Felicito Payumo so the issue will definitely have more political colour that the green one. But environmentalists should really raise hell!

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