Negligent local officials, drivers decimating us

You can’t make the same mistake twice, it is said, for the second time you make it, it is no longer a mistake but a choice, conscious and deliberate. What if the third or more times, is it by habit?

In July 2000 typhoon toppled a 70foot-high pile of garbage at the Payatas dump in Quezon City. More than 200 died under the toxic heap, about the same number never recovered, another 200 injured, 80 shanties flattened. Rescuers collapsed from noxious fumes. The site should have kept shut, as it was two years prior, and over 600 scavengers, including children, relocated. Residents kept warning about the perilous pileup. Mayor Ismael Mathay was blamed for the mistake of negligence.

This recurred in August 2011 as heavy rains weakened the riprap of Irisan dump in Baguio City. Over 1,500 tons of trash crumbled down the hillside onto the village below in the municipality of Tuba, Benguet. Twenty-two corpses were recovered; another 12 remained lost; two-dozen middle-class houses were destroyed. The reeking, smoldering heap remained un- bulldozed for many months afterwards. trash — more of it the more garbage trucks are contracted to haul. Isn’t lucrative garbage contracting the reported spark of the Manila mayoralty battle royal between Fred Lim and Erap Estrada?

It’s but right for the public to raise hell against New Year’s Eve killings and maimings by indiscriminate revelry gunfire. Shouldn’t there be as loud a howl against the daily killings-maimings by reckless drivers of pedestrians, motorists, and commuters?

This week, as is usual, dozens of citizens were slain or crippled by motorcycle, car, taxicab, jeepney, bus, and truck crashes. They innocently were just driving, carpooling or commuting to work or home, or crossing streets on errands. Then — wham — drowsy, drunk or drug-crazed or plain untrained drivers hit them.

Such is what happened Tuesday to 20-year-old coed Marie Cennie Inson. A cement mixer bumped a jeepney then crushed her at the stop where she was waiting for a ride to school. Four jeepney passengers were injured. Inson died while being rescued from excruciating

How many more have to die or be crippled by trash-slides, road crashes, and construction debris tumbles before local officials start enforcing more strictly garbage, traffic, and safety rules?