"Ali wants to harness his competitive nature to transform Manila into a vibrant community."
"Ali wants to harness his competitive nature to transform Manila into a vibrant community."
An interesting political contest is shaping up in Manila’s fifth congressional district, pitting an Atienza against a Bagatsing. No, it’s not between the two big names in Manila politics. It is a battle of their offspring.
Ali Atienza, son of two-term Manila mayor and current Buhay Party List Rep. Lito Atienza, is challenging incumbent Fifth District Rep. Amanda Christina Bagatsing, the daughter of Amado Bagatsing who himself had served as the district representative
Ali and his supporters claim Bagatsing, popularly known as Cristal, has not done enough for the people in the three years she represented the district.
Ali is a taekwondo gold medalist in the Asian Games. He defeated a South Korean. Proving that the two of them were high-caliber competitors, the South Korean later went on to win an Olympic gold medal in the same event.
Atienza is aspiring to harness his competitive nature into transforming Manila’s Fifth District into a vibrant community where athletes could win the Philippines its first Olympic gold medal by pushing for sports programs in city schools. He has the experience in this field since he was the community coordinator for sports when his father was Manila mayor.
One of Ali Atienza’s ardent advocacies is the rehabilitation in time for the Manila-hosted Asian Games of the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex on Vito Cruz and Adriatico streets in the Malate area. The fifth congressional district is composed of Malate, Ermita, Paco, San Andres Bukid, Intramuros and Port Area. It is a densely populated area with the influx of informal settlers, particularly in Intramuros.
A real estate developer wants to buy the prime-property location of the Rizal sports complex and turn it into a shopping mall cum condominium towers. Ali frowns on the idea saying there are already enough shopping malls in Metro Manila that aggravate the monstrous traffic problem. He also deplores the non-urgent legislative proposals passed by the House supermajority that includes Cristal Bagatsing. These measures as divorce, same-sex marriage, legalized use of marijuana for medical purposes, the prohibition of physical punishment by teacher against unruly school children are not urgent and essential to the basic needs of the people, said Ali Atienza who is also against the law requiring big registration plates on the front and back of motorcycles.
“This is clearly against the system of aerodynamics because those wide metal plates block the wind and hamper a motorcycle’s mobility, “ said Ali, adding it would entail additional expenses for the plates, registration and renewal of driver’s licenses and more time time spent lining up at LTO agencies.
If the LTO officials could be more innovative, they could, instead of the metal plates, require that the registration number of motorcycles be printed big on the back of body vests to be worn by the driver and his piggy back passenger. This would serve closed circuit TV cameras better in recording and identifying riding in tandem criminals who commit assassinations and robberies.
Traffic enforcers who accost a suspicious riding-in-tandem motorcyclist can check if the printed number on the back of the body vest is the same as the smaller registration plate to preclude being misled by criminal elements.