By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
Premised on good intentions, the Makati City Council has passed an ordinance that will standardize the assignment of address numbers for all lots citywide in the interest of sound management in the local government’s disposition of social and basic services as well as protective and emergency response.
This move came about as statistics in this highly urbanized and modern city showed that well over 6,000 individual lots are without a numbered address. At the same time, out of the 36,000 land parcels with existing address numbers, more than 29,000 are not based on a standardized system.
To the credit of the city’s councilors, devising such a system is complicated. To illustrate how tedious, meticulous and complex the process could have been, one only needs to read the title they came up with for City Ordinance No. 2020-039: “An Ordinance Adopting the Standardized Makati Addressing System, Providing Mechanisms for the Implementation and Management thereof, and for Other Purposes, Subject to All Existing Laws, Rules and Regulations.”
That is why it pains me to say that this ordinance is a dead ringer to the aphorism: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” So allow me to expound on what “hell” or what the hell I mean here.
The first “hell” to consider for Makati City residents or any juridical persons or businesses with an existing address in the city is that this ordinance, upon implementation, will absolutely and without exemption change your existing numbered address.
This leads us to the second “hell” about it. That means your school, office, bank, license, passport, and all other official records must be changed. Businesses and buildings named after their respective address numbers will change as well. So smile, city folks of Makati; we’re not yet done.
But before we go on, if my allusion to “hell” offends proponents or implementers of this ordinance and if they view this reference as excessive, ask the Magallanes Village residents what “hell” they are going through right now.
Residents of Magallanes Village — blessed or cursed as the pilot area of this city ordinance’s implementation — are now dancing with the devil’s ideas of hitting back at the administration of Mayor Abby Binay.
Can we blame them? Most residents of this posh and storied village who have owned their numbered addresses for at least 60 years were surprised to receive a notice and a deadline to submit by April 24, 2023 — that’s this Monday — the accomplished forms of concurrence to the enforcement of the ordinance, which means changing their addresses as soon as possible!
And who’s assigned to make this happen? The barangay captain, in this case, Kap. Jomari Alzona, who, I assure you, is being pushed to a fiery stake by the city’s Urban Development Department or UDD come barangay elections in October! Ain’t that “hell” for the poor guy!
The only ones who don’t seem to be surprised are the two city councilors who live in Magallanes Village, whose relationship with the community from here on must be another form of “hell.”
I’m already scorched with this topic for now, but let me part with another “helluva” fun fact. If Makati is going down this road of changing addresses, make sure, Mayor Abby, that this standardized system conforms with any future zoning law that may be applied metro-wide in the National Capital Region in the coming years. Or you’ll need one “hell” of an explanation.
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