Smoke gets in your eyes

MANILA, Philippines — And in your lungs, so it’s a good thing MMDA wants people to quit smoking on the street and in public places.

But can MMDA stop buses, jeepneys, trucks, cabs, pedicabs, FXes from blowing smoke in our faces, eyes and chests? Individually or collectively, those vehicles are more deadly than a lighted cigarette sticking out of a crowd.

And yet, if MMDA really wanted to lower the level of carbon emissions and improve traffic at the same time, all it has to do is apprehend every smoke belcher traveling on EDSA, Roxas Blvd., Recto, Quiapo, Quezon Blvd., Shaw, Espa?a, C5, NLEX and SLEX.

Chairman Tolentino and his boys have been cracking their heads to reduce the number of vehicles on the road, when the solution is there in plain view: reduce the number of vehicles that emit clouds of noxious fumes by catching them in flagrante, as is where is.

While they’re at it, they could dismantle the greatest illusion, the grandest mirage, the most spectacular fraud of the 20th century: those “smoke emission testing centers” that are pure profit centers where there’s no testing because the testers see no smoke, no emission! If this is emission impossible for Environment Secretary Paje, how should  Transportation Secretary Roxas see it?