Plis Deh Jakarta!

Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo has thumbed his nose at a Supreme Court ruling and said the city will forge ahead with a major sea reclamation project. (JG Photo/Jurnasyanto Sukarno)

Bang Foke is pushing ahead with the sea reclamation project in North Jakarta, despite environmental experts saying that it will be disastrous, and even despite blocks from the State Ministry of the Environment and the Supreme Court.

This is definitely one of the best decisions made this year, whether or not it actually gets carried out. So instead of using totally new material for road reparations, the city administration is planning to recycle basic material like asphalt from previously used material.

The amount recycled is not much, but it’s a start. Next step would be figuring out how to use the hundreds of tons of garbage Jakartans throw out each month and use it as cheap building material. I wonder if any of the distinguished universities have made any studies into this…

Dozens of delman operators have been protesting the decree banning them from operating in the Monas area, where they have been basically kicked out for the last two years. An apparent promise to relocate them to Ancol or TMII apparently was an empty promise.

So why, you ask, have the delmans been banned from the Monas area? According to the mayor, it’s tough washing the horse shit off the park’s stone block, and all the urine and feces made the park all smelly and messy.

So instead of helping the delman operators manage their, um, exhaust better – which I’m pretty sure can be done – the government just cuts them out of their livelihood.

So not only do we try to plant more trees in Jakarta, but we also put pictures of trees and flowers on billboards.

Two boys sift through discarded waste floating on a river in Jakarta on Friday. (Photo: Adek Berry, Reuters) - The Jakarta Globe

So apparently, Jakarta has won 5 Adipura awards, which are awards issued for environmental awareness. All 5 Jakarta municipalities given the awards were the ones who managed to keep their areas clean, and supposedly being the greenest and cleanest in Indonesia.

Perhaps they kept the streets clean by sweeping everything into the river…

Upon my return to Jakarta, I posted this statement through Twitter:

These are some of the responses I received:

But seriously – we might be in the business capital of Indonesia, but it doesn’t mean we have to wear three-piece suits at the office and turn the aircon down really low to justify it? I’m not saying that Jakarta has to revert to bikinis or swimsuits, but we really should dress to match the climate – it’s just healthier. That way, those aircons don’t have to be turned on so low (although, some women dress like they’re at the beach in the malls, which is beyond me) and we can save energy, thus holding off global warming for a bit. 

I think the teeming masses of office workers have forgotten that we live in a tropical area. Maybe it’s because the office buildings seem like they’re in the mountains.

The Tangerang municipality is apparently so busy with other stuff they actually have lost things as large as lakes. Blaming the law that does not give authority to the muncipalilty to manage the lakes (which supposedly are the authority of the central government), several lakes are in poor condition and some have disappeared due to development of roads, buildings and the like. So the municipality will do an inventory of the lakes soon. Sorry man, that sounds ridiculous, it seems like you’re talking about a missing box of pencils or something.

The muncipality is not entirely to blame, though, as the citizens are also the ones who falter – some reclaim land for development (as land that was once a lake has no certificate), and others simply dump their garbage in. So after 60 plus years of independence, we really haven’t changed much, have we?

Tangerang has agreed to allocate land for construction of a garbage processing site for Jakarta’s trash. So Tangerang will turn away couples looking for a place to have premarital sex and even women walking alone at night, but will accept trash.

The Tangerang authorities really know how to make their city comfortable, don’t they?

Plis Deh Jakarta extends its deepest sympathies and profound prayers to those who suffered from the leevee breach at Situ Gintung. We will post more info on rescue efforts and how you can help soon.

The environmentally-friendly NGO has stated that the monthly ‘car-free’ days are a waste – of effort, I suppose – and has urged the government to halt this activity and reevaluate the actual effectiveness of the program. My take? I agree.

The car-free day only clears up certain main roads in the city, which only displaces traffic, not stop it. This is similar to the bright idea of moving school hours half an hour earlier, without really attacking the root of traffic and pollution problems – too many cars and motorcycles!

Maybe the car-free days should be extended to cover all of Jakarta, with the exception of public transport. Oh, I forget, those smoke-spewing buses are part of the problem…

A panel of experts from various agencies and organizations have convened in a conference, basically to say that Jakarta needs a new approach towards the yearly flooding. Really? You think?

Applausable as the conference is…. isn’t it just a tad too late to say we need to prevent floods, not just react to them?

Again, it’s better late than never. But try explaining that to the citizens in Kampung Melayu or Kelapa Gading.

Imagine rolling hillsides side-by-side with tea plantations, encircled by really big, posh houses, all empty. Imagine virtually only one major road connecting that area to the city, and imagine it only being filled with people on the weekends – with their cars of course, creating weekly traffic jams that aren’t even news anymore.

Done imagining? Yep, it’s Puncak. These hillsides, which are naturally supposed to be water catchment areas, are instead filled with big, empty houses owned by really rich people, and are usually empty during the week and rented out during the weekend. Talk about the needs of the few going above the needs of the many – the burst of villas in the 1980s in the Puncak area has caused unchecked development, and, yes, eventually, more water coming down the rivers to flood Jakarta because it is not absorbed enough by the plants that are still there.

So a 20-year overdue crackdown on these villas is coming. When? We don’t know yet, as finally the authorities have the smarts to not reveal the schedule. Well, at least something is being done.

In a study that is totally serious and totally not funny, experts say that 50% of professional workers that work in office buildings suffer from “sick building syndrome”, due to various toxic chemicals inside the buildings, and other factors.

Working from home is looking more and more attractive…

Remember this post?

Looks like we’ll have to wait a little more, since the loan is taking a while to trickle down to us. Until November, that is. Which year, we’ll never know.

What is actually happening is that the World Bank doesn’t have money to loan to us… or anyone else for that matter… So in the meantime, better pitch in for that rubber boat!