Plis Deh Jakarta!

So here’s what you can expect in a more or less generic New Year’s Eve in Jakarta:

• afternoon to evening, the roads will be relatively empty, as many people will still be going to Puncak, or another out-of-town destination. I still don’t know why that after 20 years and almost no development, Puncak is still a destination.
• sounds of fireworks will start as soon as it gets dark.
• the people selling new year trumpets will have a rush of orders; they’ll need to unload their merchandise quickly, anyway.
• the streets will get jammed 10 PM upwards, filled with people in the streets parking irregularly and blowing their new year trumpets in everybody’s ear.
• bars will be packed with people wanting to countdown the seconds enchanced with various types of alcoholic drinks.
• somebody, somewhere is having a DVD marathon at home and hating the noise outside.
• don’t ever go to the Monas area because it will be packed even more.
• pickpockets have the time of their life in the throng of new year crowds.
• policemen are overwhelmed trying to organize the traffic and people, simply give up and go to the nearest coffee stall.
• ‘anti-maksiat’ patrols will still make rounds in certain areas, waving their banner high.
• but all over Jakarta, people will be forgetting their worries for the moment, as they celebrate the coming of a new year!

Happy New Year, Jakartans. Keep safe and good luck!

A small kiosk selling everything, to bottled gasoline (using old Coca-Cola bottles).

The city council rejects an idea floated by the police to arm community heads in the effort to maintain law and order.

Um… why would an idea like this come up in the first place? I can picture a Jakarta-style Mexican standoff, or one of those cowboy duels, but done in a small alleyway instead of the main road, to get rid of the ‘baddie’ of the neighborhood. “This housing complex isn’t big enough for the both of us,” says the community cheif (ketua RW).

Bringing guns into the community will only increase proliferation, and that’s when we assume everybody entitled with these guns will follow the letter of  the law. Yeaaah. Let’s just keep the guns with the police and armed forces – not that it’s limited to them anymore either.

The city will be tougher on emissions from motor vehicles next year, they say, although they apparently do not know how to do it exactly. But they’re pretty sure of one thing – the emissions control will start with private vehicles.

So next year, the millions of private vehicles will have low emissions (supposedly). And those hell-spewing buses will still bring black poison all over the city….

Remember feeling stupid in SD? When you couldn’t understand a single sentence from those lousy hand-me-down textbooks? Seems that some researchers got together and made that official – to the extent of saying that the textbooks are not appropriate for class.

Well, I don’t think they use those outdated Balai Pustaka textbooks anymore, but since then many schoolbook publishers have turned up, while not necessarily fulfilling the requirements and needs of kids in 1st and 2nd grade. Well, there is a national standarization board of some kind, but somehow they missed reviewing all the books invovled in this research. Why? No budget.

Anyway, if you read the article it also states findings that in one instance, the writer mistakenly thought an issue to discuss about gender became an issue to discuss about sex, and goes on describing… I’ll stop there. And that’s not mentioning the level of language and usage of knowledge in the books are far too high for 1st and 2nd graders.

And here I was under the impression that school textbooks should be written by somebody smart?

29,000 policemen are assigned to guard around 1,000 church locations, in fear of attacks.

Some voices in the Islamic community are urging their fellow Muslims to not say “Merry Christmas” to Christians, because it would mean that they believe in Christmas and Jesus Christ too. Ironically, there are no religious edicts banning Muslims from congratulating Buddhists or Hindus on their religious celebrations, or Easter for that matter.

Some of those on holiday and not celebrating Christmas decide to… go to the zoo.

Pacific Place mall has scheduled fake snowfall every day, together with Christmas caroling.

Malls outdo themselves with Christmas decorations and programs.

Jakarta streets are relatively empty, because today is also the 1st day of a  5-day long weekend.

However bad or good, absurd or funny Christmas can be in Jakarta, we at Plis Deh Jakarta hope those of you celebrating have a Merry Christmas!

A coalition of NGOs got together to scrutinize the city budget, concluding that it is too lavish on some points. I agree, there is Rp 1.6 billion set aside for … speech writing? I think presidential speech writing is something necessary, but… on the city level? When was the last time you heard a commanding and heart-rousing speech from a city official? We’d most likely hear a commanding and heart-rousing speech from a student demonstrator, and they do it for free. Not that either speech would be heard by Jakartans in general.

But I’m not sure why the NGOs pointed out that equipment for the fire department, at Rp 1 billion, was extravagant. Have they ever seen our pitiful excuse for a fire department? They need all the help they can get.

A state budget limit of Rp 12 million for laptops a bit over the top considering that city officials won’t be doing 3D animation or video editing anytime soon, but budget allocations for Rp 35 million laptop? I think someone just has their eye on a nice 17″ MacBook Pro, which would look nice on their desk, be damned if he didn’t have the slightest idea how to use it properly. That’s what the desktop PC next to it is for.

When asked about the obvious excess from limits of state budgetary rules, the city official in charge merely said ‘state budget limits do not apply to regional budget decisions’. And this quote is priceless: “.. we have no authority to say whether they are overpriced”. Use your head! The rest of us surely can.

On the positive side, at least the public budget can come under scrutiny now. It’s one small step.

So, congratulations to Jakartans who have until the end of this month to sign up for their tax number (NPWP). Your future taxes will be well spent, if this is any indication. The question is for whom.

Trash piled up in the Citarum in North Jakarta. The river supports 28 million people and 20 percent of national industrial output. (Adek Berry/Agence France-Presse) - from the International Herald Tribune

The Asian Development Bank will be lending USD 50 million to the Jakarta city administration to clean up Citarum river.

Hm.

We actually need to borrow money to clean up our own mess, regardless on whether or not the money will actually be spent cleaning up the river or becoming somebody’s Hummer. And the debt will be paid off at the taxpayers’ expense, including the Hummer.

Of course, the ADB will be implementing measures and controls that will somewhat prevent or decrease misuse of funds or corruption, but yeah well… if there’s one thing Indonesians are good at, it’s definitely cooking the books! But you know what? As long as we get the river properly clean and keep it that way, I don’t mind paying for a few Hummers. As long as we know about it.

Perhaps alternative energy sources are here already. Your coconut juice can also become your Pertamax.

Submitted by Nita.

A view from outside of one of the political party offices. We blurred out the party name… a bit.

Close-up: despite having tons of party flags, the office only has one small, measly Indonesian flag on the car.

Submitted by iiiccchhhaaa.

As mentioned in a previous post, there are many campaign banners going up all over Jakarta with faces and party affiliations on them. We don’t know who they are, what they stand for, but they definitely have clear complexions and well-defined make-up. Check out the lady’s lipstick on the right, for instance, and the generally unblemished faces. So unblemished that they seem to be cartoonish, indicating Photoshop manipulation.

Would we recognize them in real life, let alone vote for them?

Submitted by iiiccchhhaaa.

A Transjakarta bus exploded after some technical problems (as of yet undisclosed), but thankfully after safely carrying passengers to Blok M Terminal.

Somehow in any other capital city, I think there would be outcries from the public towards the government and the public transportation administrator. Here? It gets a few articles and shows up on non-essential blogs like us.

Shouldn’t there be more people asking why it happened?