Skip to main content

An open letter to Christopher Lao

Dear Chris

You were never my student in Environmental Science 1 but some of your classmates from Malcolm Hall were. One of them told me the tale of the floating car before I saw it plastered on Facebook! But despite you being taken for a fool, I don't think you really are! You were just one exasperated taxpayer!

As I have written earlier, Metro Manila is an extremely dangerous urban environment where the mere act of using the streets as a pedestrian or as a motorist (as you have found out to your humiliation by an unkind Pinoy social networking community) can kill!

Example: At one flooded street in Manila, several people were reported to have been electrocuted when they held on to a fancy lamp post for support during a flood. It appeared that the lamp post had no insulation that makes them "all weather"!

I heard you are about to take the Bar and some of my lawyer friends hope that you will pass so that ALL will be informed (the networks included). But more than that I hope you TOP the Bar, be a good lawyer with the following legal advocacy.

We learned in our Environmental Science 1 class that there are so many laws and ordinances passed that suppose to make sure people are safe on the streets. Now we have seen those diggings of utility companies that wrecked streets and may cause your car to ruin its suspension. People have been known to have fallen into these "holes" and ditches. Even at UP, one non academic staff employee fell into one and she had a minor fracture and was treated at our famous, beloved and butt of jokes "Infirmary". I think the utility company is liable and so is UP. While the employee did not press charges, the fact is there was no sign that informed all of the "DANGER"! Now did those utility companies who subcontracted the work ever inform the residents of these neighbourhoods that their streets would be trashed? Now they do have signs saying "restoration. Restoration my butt! It is like the Japanese praying that another tsunami restores the town of Otsuchi in Japan to its former and picture postcard state!

On our streets we wish the disabled dead! Disabled access with that trademark wheelchair sign leads often into ditches and manholes! I'm pretty sure you know we have laws protecting the disabled!

Perhaps you can take all these groups who take our safety for granted to court!

You have been the victim of the Filipino's penchant for taking these matters not seriously. But you may have the last laugh. Karma will play its part and one or a carload of wags who ridiculed you will fall into deep water because they were not informed. Then I hope you agree to provide them legal services!

The "floating car" is not a joke.

Sincerely

Prof. Ben Vallejo

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Simoun's lamp has been lit, finally.. not by one but by the many!

"So often have we been haunted by the spectre of subversion which, with some fostering, has come to be a positive and real being, whose very name steals our serenity and makes us commit the greatest blunders... If before the reality, instead of changing the fear of one is increased, and the confusion of the other is exacerbated, then they must be left in the hands of time..." Dr Jose Rizal "To the Filipino People and their Government" Jose Rizal dominates the Luneta, which is sacred to the Philippine nation as a place of martyrdom. And many perhaps all of those executed in the Luneta, with the exception of the three Filipino secular priests martyred in 1872, have read Rizal's  El Filibusterismo . Dr Rizal's second novel is a darker and more sinister one that its prequel but has much significance across the century and more after it was published for it preaches the need for revolution with caveats,  which are when the time is right and who will in...

Kung bakit dapat maging wikang pambansa din ang Ingles

Isang kakatwang eksena ang nasaksihan ko sa isang pribabdong opisina kamakailan lang. Dalawang empleyado ang inatasang bigyan ng solusyon ang isang isyu tungkol sa logistics. Ang isa ang tubong Davao at ang isa ay taga Iloilo. Ang unang wika nila ay Cebuano (Bisaya) at Hiligaynon (Ilonggo). Ang dalawang wika ay halos pareho ngunit may mga katagang iba ang kahulugan sa isa't isang wika. Ginamit nila ang wika nilang kinalakihan at hindi sila nagkaintindihan. Ang nangyari tuloy ay gumamit na lang sila ng wikang Ingles! Yung na nga rin ang sabi ko. Mag-English na lang kaya kayo! At bakit di wikang Filipino ang ginamit nila? Sa totoo lang, marami pa rin ang hindi bihasa sa Filipino upang gamitin ito sa mga larangan tulad ng logistics. At hindi lamang sa mga larangang teknikal, sa mga biyahe ko sa ibat-ibat lugar sa Pilipinas, ang mga naka-paskel sa mga CR o palikuran tungkol sa pagtitipid ng tubig ay naka sulat sa 1)Wika ng rehiyon 2) Wikang Ingles 3) at minsa'y sa wikang Filipino S...

Leonard Co (1953-2010), Filipino botanist

With much sadness and shock I learned from WWF chair Lory Tan that internationally renowned botanist Leonard Co was killed together with a guide and a forest ranger last Monday, 15 November in a firefight in Leyte between Armed Forces of the Philippines soldiers and Communist guerrillas. As the Philippine Daily Inquirer reports it ,  Co and his researchers were surveying a forest plot of the Energy Development Corporation (EDC) for native Philippine trees and plants especially those that are in danger of extinction, like this Rafflesia flower (the picture I got from Dr Julie Barcelona's blog . Thank you Julie) The 41 year old Communist insurgency has again claimed another life of the best and brightest of the Philippines. In Leonard Co's case, a bright life that cannot be replaced. For he was one of if not the last of  the classically trained botanists in plant taxonomy and systematics in the Philippines. While one can learn the basics of these disciplines i...