Build, Build, Rebuild

Netnet Camomot .

I TOLD a friend about my spring cleaning and he said, “Summer na ron.” Haha!

And what a summer. It’s still hot hot hot and the best place to keep cool in is the mall. For last Monday, though, I gotta feeling some people could feel the heat more as the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency revealed the names of barangay captains and councilors allegedly involved in the illegal drug industry. Was the name of your usual suspect included in the list?

If any of those in the list will win again in the May 14 barangay election, ambot na lang sa langaw unsay nahitabo sa uk-ok.

Let’s help President Rody Duterte achieve his spring-cleaning goals for the country by voting for qualified public servants.

Define qualified. Hmmm. I guess the Commission on Elections has the criteria.

But even without referring to some criteria, you already know what you want for your barangay. If you want snow, well, you have to migrate to a country that has winter, where you can truly have a spring cleaning in spring.

Cagayan de Oro has also been in a spring-cleaning mode in removing the spaghetti wires, add to that the “Build, Build, Build” frenzy as the city government plans to rebuild the Amphitheater and give Divisoria a makeover. City Mayor Oscar Moreno revealed this days before the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections, so, if his party’s candidates are running in your barangay, you now know who to vote for.

The removal and then rebuilding of the Amphitheater is what happens to a city that evolves from one mayor to another.

Moreno will also change Divisoria’s light posts which were installed by another past mayor who turned city hall into a violet zone.

If ever I’ll become mayor, Divisoria and city hall will have piggy lights, piggy statues and piggy benches. And all supplies in city government offices should have piggy designs, from piggy pens to piggy desk lamps. Cute, no?

And instead of saying “hello,” everyone should say, Oink!

Yes, the Cagayanon will be constantly reminded of the pork barrel with all the piggies and oinks. Talk of rubbing it in.

But it’s such a waste of resources—money, labor, materials—when a city removes a historic structure, only to rebuild it later.

When the Divisoria light posts began to sprout years ago during the violet administration, the only thought that came to my minute brain was, UFOs. Because they resemble galactic lights. They were of course most appropriate for the Night Café at Divisoria. And that’s not meant as a compliment.

Moreno is also planning to turn Divisoria into a “walking street.” Is that the same as a Night Café? Most probably not?

I wonder if the Night Café did serve coffee. I went there only once and that’s on the week it opened. The weeks, months and years after that, I would merely pass by, only to see how chaotic it had become. When it finally said goodbye, the Night Café may have disappeared, but it reappeared in some other form in other parts of the city. That’s when we realized that the bad habits nurtured at the Night Café won’t go away.

Those who frequented the Café then are now grownups with their own families and careers, with most of them thinking twice about wasting their hard-earned moolah on a night life. But those who were little kids during Night-Café days are now teenagers whose health still allows them to morning-the-night, that’s why any place that serves alcohol will continue to thrive. You and I were young once, we know how it is.

If you’re indeed young once but still behave like a young one, it’s probably time to have a spring cleaning, too—of your bad habits, that is.

Meanwhile, uptown CDO is beginning to look a lot like a foodie’s haven, with one more favorite resto opening soon at SM uptown. Yum! Well, that’s one more “challenge” for the persistent dieter—to partake or not to partake, that’s the question.

Remember what Eve had at the Garden of Eden? Yes, an apple. That’s how it all started. So, blame the apple. Wait, blame the snake. But to the dieter, an apple is a blessing—it can replace the crunch of peanuts and the sweetness of ice cream. So, the fridge has had its spring cleaning, too. From peanuts and ice cream, to apples.

My most sincere apologies for constantly writing about spring cleaning, and I can’t promise I won’t write about it again in the near future. That’s what I do now—I put spring in the cleaning.