It’s somewhat of a slow day, so I’m writing this out as a sort of de-stresser..
According to Rappler’s article titled “Taguig, Makati in a ‘banner war’ over Fort”, Makati City and Taguig City are starting to fight it out over which city holds jurisdiction over Bonifacio Global City (BGC). As an employee working in the BGC area, of course the concern over which city holds jurisdiction is not something one can just ignore. There’s a matter of taxes, color coding (for vehicles), who will be in-charge of patrolling BGC, and other such aspects.
Rather than focusing on every little small aspect of how this face-off is ultimately going to affect the bigger scheme of things here in BGC, I’d rather, presently, just focus on the article by Rappler.
As of now, I don’t really have a problem with their “feud” as long as..
- It doesn’t interrupt the routines of people in both Makati and Taguig, especially the ones in BGC. Of course, we are one country, one Metropolitan Manila, yadda yadda. What’s the point of arguing over who controls BGC if because of that, it disrupts the daily routine of people working in Makati and Taguig, and of course the ones working in the BGC (and neighboring) areas.
- These face-offs don’t escalate into something more. Well, we Pinoys usually take things to heart. An insult here could lead to a fight there. Because BGC is a booming area for businesses and companies, it’s definitely not going to be taken lightly by either Taguig or Makati, over who controls it. As long as their arguments over who controls what doesn’t involve physical altercations and whatnot, then there’s no problem.
- Banner wars and the sort are not an expenditure credited to the (city) government and the taxpayers money. With those PDAF and pork-barrel discussions ongoing, there’s no need to add more oil to the flame. Now, while putting up banners may show the pride of your city and other such reasons, there’s no use spending money for tarpaulins and banners when you know that one, the whole thing isn’t yet finalized and two, you know those banners aren’t really beautifying anything. In fact, they just ignite more conflict with the conflicting party.
- These conflicts don’t litter the streets of BGC. As mentioned in the previous number, banners and the like. The thing I noticed about the Philippines in general is that politicians and government put up SO MANY posters and tarpaulins, to promote every single thing. Example, come election time, you see candidates’ photos (on banners) strewn across one entire wall; but no one bothers to clean them up after the elections are done. People post so many banners, side-by-side (how the heck is this practical?!) and then don’t bother cleaning up later when the posters start falling to the ground and start littering the streets. Back to the BGC issue, it’s not a problem if someone puts up a poster here and a poster there, but make sure that if you’re putting up all those posters and banners which are supposed to “serve a purpose”, better make sure you clean up after yourself.
Just my two cents on the whole Makati versus Taguig banner wars issue. I feel a bit better about writing it out, because I don’t keep these frustrations in….but then again I think I sort of riled myself up there with all those frustrations coming out.