The Garbage Bench

Outside of the house there is a nice little bench on which to sit. Right next to the gate. Relaxing spot when you want to people watch and talk with the neighbours.

Doesn't it look lovely?  The problem is the whole neighbourhood has taken it upon themselves to use our little bench as their own pit stop and restaurant.  After buying snacks from the sari-sari store they sit there and eat them.  The unfamiliar smell of strangers causes the dogs to bark. Thankfully we all know how quietly Filipinos conduct their conversations.  

But not only do they treat our little bench as their own rest spot, they also use it as a garbage dump.  Take a look at all the trash they stuff in the trees and bench and toss on the ground.

If sitting on your neighbour's bench and treating it like a garbage dump isn't the definition of rude then I don't know what is.

The ASEAN delegates are coming! Quick, hide the garbage!

ASEAN is hosting one of it's meetings in town.  I had no idea but I should have known something was up what with crews posting flags around town and there being a larger than normal police presence. Closer to the event location I saw a large PNP group with riot shields.  What for?  Do they really think someone is going to disturb the ASEAN meeting? And who would do such a thing?  I think they better stamp out the terrorists and quickly.

I was walking to the mall when I saw all those cops with riot shields and then I saw this:

They put up a new banner on the bridge.  They did this previously when the president visited.  I was dying laughing because it's such an obvious way to simply hide the garbage while the delegates are in town.  

Let's take a look behind the banner:

Mhmm....

Just awful.  Look at all that garbage.  And the stink!  That area always smells rotten. How can anyone live there? Why don't the residents stop tossing their trash in the river?  Why don't they try and clean it up?  Why doesn't the city clean it up?  

They also covered up the market across the street from the mall:

Dressing up a squalid area with Globe advertisements is not going to solve a thing.  Perhaps the city should invest in the area and clean it up?

Security at the mall was tighter than usual.  Both inside and out.  Besides the normal frisk and metal detector scan at the entrance they added a second one inside at the hallways that connect each side of the mall:

Wow looks like they are pretty serious about security, right? But at the end of the other hallway across the mall the metal detectors were unmanned!

Now look and see how they beefed up security outside:

Now that's real security!  That's real safety measures!  Instead of using a stick with a mirror to search the undercarriage of cars for bombs they place a camera on the road and now the PNP can watch the monitor as the car passes over it and make sure there really are no bombs. 

But it's all going to go back to normal when the conference is over.  The security guards will go back to the mirror stick and the same tired body frisk at the mall entrance and the whole security charade will continue unabated.  Meanwhile the banner blocking the view of garbage creek will come down bit by bit as the weather wears it away only to become a part of and reveal all that trash once again.

And what's the point of that?