The billboard menace
Regulations render nearly 90% of all billboards in Metro Manila illegal. Yet, they are allowed to operate, disregarding public safety and the city’s aesthetics.
I LIVE in the Fort and my office is in Ortigas Center. At least once a week, my work requires me to go to Quezon City, Mandaluyong City, and occasionally, Parañaque City and Alabang too. Suffice to say, I get to witness the aesthetic degradation of Metro Manila’s highways and byways on a regular basis. Lucky for me, I have a driver. Having him around allows me to close my eyes and shut myself off from the visual clutter of the city.
Metro Manila has become the ugly capital of ASEAN and billboards play a large part in its squalor. We, the citizens, should cry foul on the unabated proliferation of billboards that visually pollute our city.
Billboards exacerbate visual disorder, it makes the city feel even more dense than it actually is. It traps carbon dioxide on our roads causing us to breath stagnant carbon dioxide. Worse, it deprives us from enjoying the vistas of the city and whatever greeneries are left. Billboards assault us with ads, left and right, bombarding us with information we neither want nor need. In short, billboards eats away at our quality of life.
In terms of safety, billboards, by its very nature, are designed to distract drivers with its catchy visuals and strong one liners. Digital billboards are worse as they hold the attention of drivers longer what with its strong luminance and constantly changing graphics. Both endanger public safety as they divert driver’s attention.
The proliferation of billboards are not a sign of progress. They are symptoms of a government that is failing us. See, there is an enormous money trail in the outdoor advertising industry.
From the P3- million annual rental fees that advertisers pay for a typical billboard on EDSA, unscrupulous officials of local governments get a piece of the revenues as does those from the Metro Manila Authority ( MMDA) and the Department of Public Works and Highways ( DPWH). The bribes are for them to turn a blind eye on billboards that violate the building code. Multiply the grease money by more than 10,000 billboards that dot Metro Manila and you have a corruption racket that rivals the drug menace itself.
There is no gray area in the building code as its preclusions are very well- defined. Among its many prohibitions are: No billboard shall be constructed as to unduly obstruct the natural view of the landscape or otherwise defile, debase, or offend the aesthetics of the city; Roof signs are absolutely not allowed; Billboards shall not be installed near high voltage power lines, posts or sub-stations; Billboards shall not be installed over, across or along public thoroughfares and center islands; No banner shall be posted on roads, sidewalk, center island, posts, trees and open spaces; Signs shall not be allowed in sidewalks, flyovers, interchanges, traffic signs, communications posts, LRT, and MRT terminal stations or their columns and beams; No billboard shall be located within the distance of one hundred meter radius from another.
These statutes render nearly 90% of all billboards in Metro Manila illegal. Yet, they are allowed to operate, shamelessly, in complete disregard of the public’s safety and the aesthetics of the city.
Billboard guidelines were updated in 2011, under the watch of former MMDA chairman Francis Tolentino. It was also at that time that the MMDA was deputized to act as the enforcer of the national building code on behalf of the DPWH.
Notwithstanding the ratification of guidelines, the MMDA allowed thousands new billboards to be installed between 2011 and 2016, the majority of which were in violation of the building code. Francis Tolentino and his minions at the
Billboard Clearance Office have done us a disservice and they should be held accountable. Now, it is up to the present administration to undo the mess. The responsibility of enforcing the building code has been given back to the DPWH.
So far, it has been a bad start for the DPWH. Earlier this year, it gave permission to an outdoor advertising company to install billboards and banners along the line of EDSAMRT and its stations. It seems corruption is winning the day at the DPWH under Sec. Mark Villar.
The big winners in all this are the outdoor advertising companies. These companies have become so rich and powerful that they now have political sway. It will take enormous political will for this administration to have them dismantle the thousands of illegal billboards that are already there.
As tax paying citizens, we should all challenge government with these questions: Why should we be deprived of an unobstructed vista of the city’s greeneries, the river, the sky, and the cityscape when the law allows us this privilege? Why should the safety of our motorist be compromised with billboards allowed to straddle the middle of public highways and on top of MRT stations? Why should the public be exposed to electrical hazards with billboards installed within striking distance of high voltage electrical posts and cables? Why should the safety of building occupants be put at risk with billboards allowed to block fire exists of buildings? Why are electronic billboards allowed to operate with maximum luminosity, diverting driver’s attention away from the roads and to the ads?
We should not sit quietly while illegal billboards inundate our city and rob us of safe and beautiful vistas in our public spaces. Instead, we should all hold the DPWH, MMDA, and local governments accountable for compromising our quality of life and putting the public in harms way.
Let us not forget that the city’s airspace belongs to the citizens. Neither the powerful outdoor advertising companies nor corrupt government officials should benefit from it at the public’s expense.
The Duterte administration promised us change. We are not asking anything extraordinary — all we ask is that government fulfill its mandate by imposing the building code, as they should in the first place. The ball is in the hands of the DPWH.