The Goons Retreat

February 12, 2016 at 12:01 am

Jojo Robles/Manila Times

Those Yellow goons over at the Edsa People Power Commission

succumbed to public outrage and withdrew their lame-brained
plan to close White Plains Avenue for 16 days while they
celebrate their 30th anniversary. The latest announcement from
the commission states that the vital spur road to Edsa will be
closed to traffic only for one day, Feb. 25.
Thats still one day too many, if you ask me. Me, and those tens
of thousands of commuters and motorists who were
inconvenienced last year, when the Yellows shut down Edsa for
their high holidays and forgot to tell the rest of the population to
stay home.
Understand, I say inconvenienced only because one year is too
long to hold a grudge, even against clueless Yellows who still
think everybody shares their strange belief system. I personally
walked more than a kilometer from the office where I work in the
mornings on the Pasig side of Shaw Boulevard to a meeting in
Mandaluyong on the other, along with thousands of other rideless Filipinos muttering curses under their breath, so I know
exactly what happened last year.
But when the Yellows attempted to up the ante from last year by
promising a 16-day traffic jam for their 30th anniversary, they got
exactly what they had coming to them: Pure, unadulterated
anger, especially online, where not even the most rabid of Aquino
loyalists dared to defend the brain-dead plan.
Of course, no one has claimed responsibility for dreaming up the
White Plains closure. The Yellows who conceived this wonderful
people power gift to the people were smart enough to not identify
themselvesand that information will probably never leave
Bahay Pangarap.
But you have to admire the audacity of the Yellows for expecting
the rest of us to just accept that this is a big deal for them and
that any inconvenience they may cause is their inviolable right.
After all, they even had alternate routes drawn up, so people

cant accuse them of being insensitive to the problems of losing

access to an important diversion road for more than two weeks.
So I dont really think the Edsa commission should be
congratulated for being sensitive. If we charge people for
attempting but not consummating murder, I suggest that we
should also go after these jokers for trying to impose their beliefs
on a weary population once againeven if they got cold feet and
decided against it at the very last moment.
And these are the people who look down on people who have the
courage of their political convictions when these dont jibe with
their own. Thank God we dont have to suffer these Yellow
hypocrites for much longer.
***
Yesterday, the journalists and other staffers of The Standard
celebrated an anniversary of their own, this newspapers 29th
year in publication. Its been quite a run, really, for all of us who
at one time or another worked in what was originally called the
Manila Standard.
Ive been privileged to have been a part of this newspaper from
the very beginning, when Rod Reyes, Andy del Rosario and the
rest of the original crew of editors, columnists and reporters
assembled and combined their talents to come up with the
newspaper that you, dear reader, have come to regularly read
and love. And Im proud to report that the current crop of
journalists who put the paper together today share the same
passion for reporting, editing and opinion-writing that inflamed
the original staff.
All newspapers have their own stories that never make the pages
that come out every day of the year, stories that, unfortunately,
will never be told. As the old newsroom adage says, people who
love to eat sausages and read newspapers should never watch
either being made.
We in The Standard have no shortage of stories to tell, apart from
the ones you read. But it is still a continuing story, after all, and
nobody can really divine the ending yet.

What amazes me no end is how those years seem to have flown

by so fast. It seemed like only yesterday, for instance, when
RTR, as we called our first editor-in-chief and publisher, would
preside over editorial meetings while sitting on one corner of the
central desk, one leg raised above the floor, his soft and kindly
voice heard clearly above the suddenly quiet typewriters.
So much time has passed since those halcyon days, when there
was no Internet, no Google, no Facebook and, yes, no cellular
phones, even. But The Standards passion for news and opinion
never changed; we still love delivering the concise news that you
want and the opinions that make you understand it better.
On a personal note, Id like to thank everyone in The Standard
whos made my own stay here, in various capacities and at
various times over these past 29 years, so challenging, so colorful
and ultimately so fulfilling. Im proud to be a part of this
organization and I always will be, wherever I end up eventually.