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BY LUIS BUENAFLOR JR.
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Monday, June 19, 2017
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WHY IS IT that local officials and some national government officials have this penchant for putting their pictures on all government documents within their jurisdiction, i.e. business permits, licences, city hall employees’ identification card and yes, even senior citizens and persons with disability identification cards?
What is worse is that these local and national government officials will use any space available to put their names and pictures, i.e. public plazas, public markets, heritage sights, public cemeteries, and public toilets.
I say their faces would all be better off in the public toilets to be flushed down the toilet bowl together with rest of the shit.
As always for the uninitiated, here’s what “epal” means:
“Epal”, in Filipino slang, usually refers to a person who inappropriately presents himself in a situation or butts into a conversation. Despite its common use in informal talk, there is a dearth of official reference concerning its etymology.
“This is slang derived from the word papel (paper). It is now used to refer to shameless self-promotion, particularly of politicians.”
In short it’s just a public official inflicted with a severe malady of entitlement and one who is deeply in love with himself and his face.
This public official is also suffering from a severe and rabid form of the desire to impose himself to the citizens of the municipality, city, province, or the whole country.
The usual reaction of the natives to this form of pollution and affront to their sensibilities is just to ignore the streamers, posters and tarpaulins emblazoned with the public official’s face featuring his ridiculous smile.
Some, however, are not born with a strong constituent that they usually experience severe vomiting and suddenly lose their appetite for food.
Others just look away or run in fear at the sight of the public official’s face with that ridiculous smile.
Still there are other natives who, in form of protest, take the streamers and tarpaulins of these public officials and use them to cover the chicken coop or the dog cage.
It is not surprising then that two legislators must have experienced all of the above, prompting them to file bills seeking to criminalize “epal.”
The late senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago filed during the 16th Congress Senate Bill No. 54, The Anti-Signage of Public Works Act (An Act Prohibiting Public Officers from Claiming Credit Through Signage Announcing a Public Works Project).
The Anti-Signage of Public Works Act, more popularly known as the Anti-Epal Bill originally filed during the 13th Congress, will prohibit public officials from affixing their names or photos on signage announcing a planned, ongoing, or finished public works project.
And Kabataan party-list’s Rep. Terry Ridon filed House Bill 4929, which proposes the creation of “an act declaring as unlawful any government officials and other persons whose name or identity may in any manner be associated with said officials.”
Naming government projects after government officials will soon become illegal if House Bill 4929 is approved.
Under the bill, those determined by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines in accordance with law are exempted.
Those who will violate the provisions of the Act will be given a penalty of one year imprisonment and will have to pay a fine of P100,000 to P1 million. A second violation would merit the offender an additional absolute perpetual disqualification to hold office.
Ridon noted that “plastering faces” on finished public works and projects is a “system of insidious advertising” and has evolved even on greetings for commonplace events.
A perfect example of a local government unit whose chief executive is severely affected by a strong case of epal is “I Am Iloilo.” Just take a stroll along the city and you will know what I mean.
On public plazas, public markets, public cemeteries, public toilets, and even heritage sights you will see the faces complete with the ridiculous smile on streamers and tarpaulins, sometimes posters, of Cong. Jerry Treñas, Mayor Jed Mabilog and Vice Mayor Joe Espinosa III.
But Mayor Jed Mabilog even takes it a little further as he is not just satisfied seeing and inflicting upon the natives his face with that ridiculous smile on almost all public spaces in the city; you can also see that ridiculous smile in all public documents.
Yes, all public documents i.e. business permits, licenses and worst, on the identification cards of senior citizens and persons with disability.
We all know that the signature of the mayor on all public documents makes these documents official and legal but his picture, no I don’t think so.
If Jed Mabilog, the former “World Mayor No. 5” and currently the mayor of the “most shabu-lized city” in the Philippines, is so in love with himself, he can just make it de rigour for all city hall employees, especially his 5,000-strong job hires, to wear shirts with his face on it and declare it as the official uniform.
The last public official who has a penchant for requiring government employees and in fact the citizens to wear shirts emblazoned with his picture was Idi Amin, the late dictator of Uganda. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
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