I want to ride my bicycle

Congratulations go out to the various bike groups that have successfully lobbied for folding bikes to be allowed in LRT trains.

Now getting to work or any other place will be quicker without having to deal much with deadly motor vehicle traffic and even deadlier air pollution. Hooray!

Except for one thing: how many will actually benefit from this allotment of "green zones" in LRT trains?

Stand by any busy Metro Manila sidewalk and count how many folding bikes pass by you in a span of one hour. How many do you see? Yup, that's right: close to none!

Having owned bikes since I was 3 and having lived in Metro Manila my whole life, let me say with confidence that most bikes in my beloved metropolis will fall under only one of these types: BMX, mountain bike and road  bike.

Folding bikes aren't just uncommon in these parts, they're a rarity.

If the purpose of letting bikes on trains is to reap all the benefits of a "hybrid lifestyle", then why is the vast majority of bike owners left out in the cold? Do the LRT and the cycling groups expect everyone to shell out thousands of pesos like Pia Cayetano just so we can buy a new folding bike? What about blue-collared workers who rely on their modified BMX's to get to their jobs at factories or construction sites? No hybrid lifestyle for them, too, huh?

While it's not hard to see why folding bikes get preferential treatment, it won't be easy to understand if this is the end-all be-all of things. Here's something to ponder over, LRT -- if foldables can get in for free, how about I pay half my fare for my non-foldable racer?

Greed for aid

Joey Salceda says interesting things sometimes. He had one last night on ANC. He said for every person who dies in a typhoon or any natural calamity, Malacañang and the local government should pool funds and give the family of that person P1 million.

For a Gloria flunky, that suggestion's real sensible.

He could have gone further, though. If a government official is revealed to have splurged the way the awesomely gallant Martin Romualdez did at Le Cirque (yes, even if it was his own[???] money), he will have to shell out double the amount for relief and rehabilitation efforts of calamity-hit areas. And it doesn't matter if that official is not a representative or a resident of the that area -- he still has to provide assistance whether he likes it or not. Also, it will have to be lump sum, not in tranches.

So the next time Romualdez sucks up to Gloria by buying her a $20,000 dinner in New York, he will have to fork over 2 million pesos to the victims of the next Ondoy.

Hey congressman, that's a fair deal. Lamon kayo ulit sa New York, dali!

Anim ba bunganga niya?

Sabagay mukhang kulang nga ang "double" sa "double talk" kung si Gloria ang pag-uusapan. Kaya siguro kelangan niya ng anim na spokespersons.

Sabi ni spokesperson no. 1 Eduardo Ermita, yung dalawang new kids on the block eh magiging "spokespersons on economic matters". Kasi raw baka isipin ng mga tao niloloko lang sila kung ang mga magsasalita tungkol sa economy eh hindi naman galing sa field of economics.

Pero di ba ekonomista si Gloria mismo, and a "pretty good" one at that? So bakit niya kelangan ng hindi isa, kundi dalawang economic spokespersons? Hindi na ba siya magaling na ekonomista? At nababawasan na ba ang galing niya sa panloloko?