The public saw them as revolting and many were nauseated when the President unraveled before a national audience ''those unconscionable'' excesses.
And now people are talking about the decisive presidential directives that put an end to all those abhorred concessions.
''Enough is enough. All this non-sense has to stop,'' these harsh words must have been uttered by the Chief Executive. And bring the bar down he did to those publicly detested frivolities.
The targets of the presidential ire are: Blaring mobile sirens of public officials that are installed in their vehicles while speeding along Metro Manila roads, the myriads of pestering posters hang by local and national officials announcing their projects (financed by taxpayers' money), and lately, the ''horror stories'' (as one senator jeered) about the sky-high salaries and allowances of executives of government owned or controlled corporations.
Just a few weeks after the directives were issued, have these excesses been halted?
Neutral observers are saying that from the looks of it, the concerned officials are succeeding in circumventing the presidential censure. Here's how:
In silence, the offensive ''wang-wang'' is still very much around. What is now being done is that the officials' two or three-car convoy has installed glaring and blinding lights in front and atop their vehicles that are bothersome to motorists even from a distance of 200 meters.
What else? They use bullhorns. Magnified a hundred times than what you and I normally hear during provincial sporting events, security personnel tell motorists and passersby to make way.
Kibitzers are calling these new intimidations as the ''hawi'' brigade of insensitive government functionaries.
Nothing beats this ingenious ''wang-wang'' substitute I encountered last Monday within the periphery of Quezon Memorial Circle.
Hiding in a security car plate, the public official recorded an annoying cellphone ringtone and played it over and over again via a megaphone!
Surely, the contraption emitted a sound that was just as offensive as the ''wang-wang'' scream!
I know this for a fact - the surreptitious car was behind me on East Avenue.
The biggest losers of the poster ban by President Noynoy are Quezon City officials, from the mayor down to ambitious barangay chairmen. These personages have become passionately addicted to using tarpaulin posters installed in all available public areas of the Capitol District.
But one councilor was able to run around in circles on the prohibition of poster display. She built a giant steel-concrete post in the center island - with her name in huge letters - at the inter-section of Batasan Road and San Mateo Road.
What am I a councilor for!
And what about those fantastic salaries and allowances?
Those personalities, literally at the receiving end of the presidential censure, are asking for exemptions.
They reasoned that theirs are man-size jobs that require brains and brawn in running the affairs of those corporations. And besides they have diplomas from American Ivy League schools to bruit about!
What arrogance!
Two of those in the limelight of public derision said their ballooning remuneration was due to representation, travelling, and advertising expenditures. These allocations did not go to their own pocket, they claimed.
Can you beat that!
