Before Herbert “Bistek” Bautista became Quezon City mayor, a large public parking lot beside the Quezon City Hall main building near East Avenue was built to address the parking problem posed by the growing number of people who had business to transact with city hall, or the city’s trial courts. No fees were charged for the use of the public parking lot.
All that changed a few days ago under the Bautista administration, one of the worst regimes to ever manage Quezon City.
Last Monday, October 17, the area surrounding Quezon City Hall became a traffic nightmare for many motorists who worked or had business to transact in that vicinity. Traffic ground to a halt at the Elliptical Road for several hours.
The cause of the mess was another improvident and self-serving decision of Quezon City officials led by Mayor Bautista. The public parking lot at city hall had been segregated for the exclusive use of city hall employees. As a consequence, the taxpayers who had used the public parking lot each time they went to city hall, had to look elsewhere for parking space. Meanwhile, top city officials remained snug and comfortable because they had assured, exclusive parking spaces at the northern sector of the Quezon City Hall compound.
Because not all city hall employees owned automobiles, only a few vehicles ended up using the public parking lot. This left plenty of parking space for non-city hall employees.
Motorists who desperately needed to go to Quezon City Hall or the nearby Hall of Justice pleaded with parking lot personnel that they be allowed to park in the remaining available spaces. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. One motorist identified himself as a taxpayer, but he was curtly told to go elsewhere.
Quezon City Hall officials and employees are supposed to be servants of the taxpayers. The fact that Quezon City’s officials and employees enjoy a preferred status over taxpayers in the use of a parking lot constructed using public funds violates the constitutional mandate that sovereignty resides in the people.
Perhaps Mayor Bautista, who used to be a comedian on the big screen, thinks that sovereignty resides in him. Since he is now on his last term as city mayor, Bautista probably no longer considers voters important.
Undoubtedly, Quezon City has deteriorated immensely ever since Bautista became its mayor.
Several city councilors allied with Bautista are now facing graft raps in the Sandiganbayan for hiring ghost employees. If that was not bad enough, a city spokesman had the temerity to deny the existence of the anomalies. That spokesman may be courting graft raps for misleading the public.
Two years ago, a proposed ordinance sought to prohibit concert organizers whose concerts are held in Quezon City from indicating the phrase “LIVE IN MANILA” in their posters and promotional materials. The idiotic proposal was abandoned after it was exposed as an unconstitutional restraint on free speech.
One infamous proposed ordinance sought to restrict the number of pets a city resident can own in the privacy of his home. Another proposal tried to seize the sidewalks and hand them over to bicycle riders. An ordinance which imposed an onerous garbage collection fee on city residents was recently voided by a court of law.
During his incumbency, Quezon City Mayor Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte Jr. marked almost every public infrastructure project in the city with vanity signs bearing his initials—SB. He also allowed several city-owned buildings near the Batasang Pambansa to be named after his relatives.
Almost immediately after he succeeded Belmonte, Bautista came out with his own vanity signages. Ceramic tiles paid for by taxpayer money and bearing the letters HB—Bautista’s initials—were affixed on many city infrastructure projects. Many of them can still be seen in the center island of Visayas Avenue today.
The late Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who was a senator at that time, branded Bautista’s vanity tiles as “e-pal” propaganda and a waste of public funds.
In August 2014, Mayor Bautista beat up a Chinese national arrested at the Philcoa area for the latter’s alleged involvement in the drug trade. The assault was broadcast live on national television. The city spokesman claimed Bautista just got carried away.
Then Justice secretary Leila de Lima, who now claims to be a vanguard against human rights abuses, did not file any criminal charges against Bautista. Maybe de Lima was already eyeing her inclusion in the 2016 senatorial slate of Bautista’s Liberal Party.
Weeks ago, Quezon City Council Hero Bautista, a younger brother of the mayor, publicly admitted being a drug addict. Instead of getting beaten up by his brother, like what happened to the Chinese national in 2014, Councilor Bautista got special treatment from the Quezon City government. He was allowed to take a leave from his work in the city council (he heads the very powerful infrastructure committee), and to return after he shall have been rehabilitated from his drug habit.
In other words, the people of Quezon City must wait until their drug-addicted public official shall be ready to return to his public duties.
Mayor Bautista should have ordered his brother to resign in the name of delicadeza, but he did not do so. Instead of leading by example, the Bautista brothers kept mum on this drug scandal, and simply relied on their political dynasty’s hold on Quezon City politics.
The lack of decency on the part of the Bautista brothers so infuriated the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption that this civil group filed criminal and administrative charges against the brothers before the Ombudsman.
Mayor Bautista is a member of the government panel which went to Norway to restart the peace talks with Philippine communist rebels. Why Bautista was chosen is a mystery. Since Bautista’s role in the peace talks is unclear, chances are, he wasted taxpayer money on a state-sponsored foreign junket, like his predecessor, Speaker Belmonte, did in Holland. Instead of wasting public money in Norway, Bautista should be working home in Quezon City.