Press ridicules RP 'popemobile'<\/p>\n
MANILA (AFP): The Philippine press yesterday attacked the
\nlocally-assembled \"popemobile\" which John Paul II will use in his
\nvisit here this week as \"ugly\" and a national embarrassment.<\/p>\n
\"One has the right to expect something better from the
\nFilipino,\" former press undersecretary Horacio Paredes wrote in
\nhis column in the Malaya newspaper.<\/p>\n
\"What we have shown the world with this monstrosity is the
\ncrudity of our workmanship, something very unfair to the rest of
\nus Filipinos,\" he added.<\/p>\n
The three million-peso (US$125,000) vehicle, which features an
\narmored, box-shaped glass canopy, \"lacks artistry and design\" and
\n\"looks like a tank,\" he wrote.<\/p>\n
The pontiff survived a 1981 assassination attempt in Rome,
\n\"but who'll save His Holiness from embarrassment if he tools
\naround Metro Manila in that monstrosity of an armored jeepney?\"
\npublisher Max Soliven wrote in the Philippine Star.<\/p>\n
The Jeepney is a Filipino car based on wartime American jeeps.
\nSoliven said the papal jeep was \"so clumsily designed (the Pope)
\nwill only look like a chimpanzee on display aboard a rolling
\nBarnum and Bailey coach.\"<\/p>\n
\"How can the Vicar of Christ, the Leader of the Faith for over
\na billion Roman Catholics all over this planet, be seen to cower
\nin a glass menagerie -- to have so little faith in Divine
\nprotection?\" he added.<\/p>\n
Popular television and radio newscaster and talk show host Ted
\nFailon said the Popemobile \"looks like a gas chamber.\"<\/p>\n
He said it appeared to have the rough suspension attributes of
\nthe \"jeepney,\" the smoke-belching converted light trucks that
\nform the backbone of the country's urban mass transport system.<\/p>\n
Officials of Francisco Motor Corp., the jeep's assemblers, and
\nCTK Inc., its armorers, could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n
Cardinal Jaime Sin, the Manila archbishop, sprinkled holy
\nwater on the jeep last weekend when it was unveiled to the public
\nfor the first time.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/press-ridicules-rp-popemobile-1447893297",
"image": ""
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