Estrada's impeachment: A national embarrassment

Estrada's impeachment: A national embarrassment

By Isagani A. Cruz

MANILA: Let us turn our attention briefly from the garbage of
the presidential misdeeds as alleged in the Articles of
Impeachment to the incredible garbage piling up in the streets of
Metro Manila. It's as scandalous as the many magnificent mansions
of Erap and much more malodorous.

The lady who affronted our national pride was right. Claire
Danes had reason to be revolted by the cockroaches and the rats.
Perhaps we aren't as squeamish as she was because we have become
accustomed to these ubiquitous vermin. But this doesn't excuse
our tolerating them as if they were lovable household pets.

There's no denying the obvious. The whole metropolis is a
sinkhole. Except for a few pockets of affluence in the plush
subdivisions, Metro Manila is a veritable skid row that doesn't
even bear traces of its glory days.

It does have its impressive high-rise buildings and elegant
restaurants and air-conditioned malls, but they're like veneer
covering a latent ugliness. Scratch the surface and what you see
is decay and filth.

Look anywhere, and it's all you can do to keep from retching.
The piles of uncollected trash are all around us. They're like
the rats in Hamelin Town.

On the sidewalks, on empty lots, on street corners and even in
the middle of the roads -- they're there to announce what a
squalid people we are. Even the downtown areas have not been
spared the degradation of mounting refuse. To take one sad
example, the once-charming Avenida Rizal, in the very heart of
Manila, is now one of its dirtiest streets.

The formerly bright thoroughfare has been blighted by the LRT.
The buildings are dank and dingy; many of them should be torn
down in the interest of public safety if not appearance. The
sidewalks are cluttered with vendors, and possibly also
pickpockets and other slatternly characters.

The first-class theaters with their marble lobbies have been
reduced to obscure and unappealing holes in the wall. Everything
had a jaded look, like an old beauty gone to pot.

And still speaking of streets, there are parts of Metro Manila
that have been flooded for decades. The mud and the slime are
already a way of life for the luckless people residing in those
areas.

Elsewhere there are excavations and appropriated sidewalks and
other illegal obstructions that give the entire metropolis the
slovenly look of a community that has given up. And there are the
inevitable slums with their makeshift hovels that have mushroomed
all over the helpless metropolis.

The rivers and esteros have also been thoughtlessly defiled,
mainly by the squatters. Where they once proudly proclaimed the
beauty of nature and the neatness of the Filipino, they are now
black with slush and covered by all manner of rotting rubbish.

President Estrada once personally directed the clean-up of one
of these rivers, but the squalor is back to blacken the waters
and infect the air. There seems to be a compulsion in some of our
people to be deliberately untidy when it takes so little to be
neat.

It's not only a matter of cleanliness but, more seriously, of
sanitation and hygiene. The putrefying trash is a breeder of
germs and disease that may affect the health and lives of the
people.

The campaign to just bury the biodegradable trash can help a
lot, but the rest of the trash must be collected and, hopefully,
even recycled. There's no point in sorting the trash when it can
only lie uncollected in the streets. Disposing of it at the
proper time and place is no less imperative than impeaching
President Estrada.

And as if the garbage and the flies were not enough, there's
also the nuisance of the graffiti. We didn't have this aberration
before but now they're all over the metropolis to mindlessly
deface private and public property.

Graffiti of cause-oriented groups may have some civic motive
although their method cannot be condoned. But what is wholly
indefensible is the nonsensical scribblings of abnormal persons
displaying their insanity.

The air pollution is also cause for serious concern. Once,
from a tall building in San Juan, I looked for the Makati skyline
but it was covered by smog. The drive against smoke belching has
been succeeding so far but much more has to be done to cleanse
the humid atmosphere.

New paint becomes soiled paint in a matter of weeks because of
the dirty air. Street repairs have added to the dust and the soot
caused by motor vehicles and factories. The time may come when we
will have to wear oxygen masks and establish breathing stations
to protect us from the heavy smog.

But far worse than the physical dirt is, by any standard, the
moral dirt that has besmirched the whole of Metro Manila,
especially the officialdom.

More than at any other time in our history, corruption has
become the hallmark of the government, including Malacanang. The
President himself is now on trial, principally on graft charges.
The honesty of the rest of the government is also suspect, with
the Congress and even the Supreme Court under public scrutiny.

Our recent humiliation before the international community over
the Abu Sayyaf misadventures, coupled now with the current
impeachment trial of our President, has discouraged many
potential tourists from visiting our country. But the worse
deterrent is the grime of the cities.

Tourism Secretary Gemma Cruz-Araneta cannot be blamed if her
success has not been spectacular. The culprit is our people
themselves who, by their own conduct, have projected to the world
the image of a filthy nation.

A foreigner rash enough to visit our country may be less
interested in the majestic Mayon Volcano with its perfect cone
and the incredible rice terraces of the Igorots than in the
mountains of trash that have become a symbol of Metro Manila.
This is a national embarrassment that condemns the whole Filipino
nation.

-- The Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network