MANILA, Philippines—Metro Manila is on the verge of achieving what the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority calls "Metro Gwapito" status by yearend, with almost half of all sidewalks and roadways cleared of obstructions, its top official said Sunday.

"We're at the tipping point. By December 2008, Metro Manila will have reached Metro Gwapito status," MMDA Chair Bayani Fernando said in the radio program, "MMDA sa GMA" over dzBB.

"Metro Gwapito" is the first phase of Fernando's "Metro Gwapo (A Handsome Metro)" campaign, which seeks to beautify the metropolitan landscape by 2010 but has drawn brickbats from urban poor communities displaced by such operations.

Fernando, who has expressed a desire to run for president, said the agency has cleared some 2,000 kilometers of paved roads of obstructions like vending stalls and shanties – close to half of the metropolis' 5,000 kilometers of roads and sidewalks.

"Our campaign to rid the streets of all these unsightly obstructions is getting lighter and lighter as more residents become more conscientious. Now they're aware of their limitations and do not think like thugs," the official said.

Not everyone, however, is as appreciative of Fernando's take-no-prisoners stance against sidewalk vendors, squatters and other inhabitants of urban poor communities.

Last week, a group of young militants labeled the MMDA chair a "berdugo" (executioner) as they picketed the MMDA offices to protest the agency's policy on street hawkers and illegal settlers.

The protesters belonging to the urban poor group, Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap, assailed the MMDA's operations around Metro Manila, which they said displaced many of them from their homes and made them lose their only source of a decent income.

Such criticism has not perturbed Fernando, who has said in several interviews that more city residents prefer his strict management practices in preserving order in the metropolis.

He said this type of consciousness about maintaining order and cleanliness had even reached the barangay (village) level in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

"It's high time that we inspire the people to be more productive and to rise up from the shackles of poverty," Fernando said in a statement prepared by the MMDA's public information office.

He said MMDA personnel had already finished the "facelift" along the length of Quirino Highway in Novaliches, Quezon City, as well as the center islands on Balintawak.