The D Spot

Former Tagaytay mayor and new MMDA chief Atty. Francis Tolentino is bent serious! He was installed as MMDA chief only last Tuesday (27 July) where he said, “I have accepted the position with great hope of attaining a better quality of life in Metro Manila and making MMDA a model agency.”

He already has a long list of things to do, beginning with looking into Metro Manila’s traffic problems. He has made ineffective the coding exemptions issued by the former MMDA administration beginning on Monday (2 August), totalling around 4,000 private cars owned by government offices and officials. The law allows only very few exemptions from number coding like media and medical practitioners.

The public can now text Atty. Tolentino personally (his phone is in the verge of breaking down because of non-stop text messages and phone calls). Soon the public can give feedback and suggest solutions through Twitter.

SCOOP on ABS CBN’s Umagang Kay Ganda and has named some bus operators and terminals who give “kotong”, which could otherwise have been used to increase the salaries of their drivers, conductors and other staff.

- Baliwag Transit Terminal pays a kotong of P20,000 a week
- 5-Star Liner gives a kotong of P30,000 a week
- St. Rose Bus Lines gives a kotng of P20,000 a week

He has a long list and has called on these bus companies and operators and others in the list to come to his office and prove that they do not give “kotong”.

This also means that there will be a lot of MMDA involved staff to be penalized, punished and given proper disciplinary measures. Expect a lot of them allegedly involved in this street corruption to be “sibak” out.

In the meantime, MMDA is forming an MMDA Volunteer Disaster Group of 500 able bodied men and women like former cadets, ROTC cadets, public officers ex-military men and others interested to sign up to start preparing for forthcoming disasters.

Traffic may seem trivial compared to the country’s other woes, but it affects a lot of people. It has a very significant in the country’s economy–billions of pesos are lost because of lost time in the streets.

The simple solution? Implement traffic rules. Equality in the streets–everyone has to follow the rules–politicians, families of politicians, commuters, and the ordinary Pinoy and Pinay.

Chairman Tolentino is bent serious–HUMANDA KA!

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