New law to implement existing laws?

Hallelujah! I would like to thank Rep. Winston Castelo of Quezon City (second district), for filing House Resolution No. 2343 urging Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chair Francis Tolentino to dismantle those ugly, giant billboards that have “uglified” our metropolis’ thoroughfares, buildings and landscapes all these years.

This aging “voice in the wilderness” still remembers having attended, as a representative of a homeowners federation, a Senate hearing called by Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago on this issue. The heads of the Department of Public Works and Highways and the MMDA were summoned to explain how come these “uglifiers” had been allowed to proliferate. Both denied responsibility, saying it was the city officials who were lax in implementing the already existing zoning ordinance that regulated the installation of these blights that have come to dominate our landscapes.

So why have these not been removed? Is there a need for another law to implement already existing laws and regulations?

Anyway, if there is such a need, so be it. But, please, MMDA, let me see something done before I turn 95.

—CONSUELO D. SISON, elon.sison@gmail.com