THE FIGHT AGAINST WANG-WANG

It borders the comical when I saw how the police and transportation department personnel reacted to the presidential statement of "Bawal na ang Wang-wang." To those who do not know, "Wang-wang" is the tagalog word for "sirens" used mostly by politicians and power pretenders to get ahead of a traffic jam.

Saw checkpoints stopping 'muscle' vehicles and indeed made several successes that hit the headlines. But is the war against these contraptions limited to noisy, blaring excuse to get ahead of everyone else?

Remember part of the president's statement was "Bawal na ang naghahari-hariang de wang wang" again in the local language meant people who act like they are Kings and are above the law.

So to those who are going to implement the existing laws against these people I ask you - "Will your actions be limited to accosting cars with sirens?"

Take for instance this group of highway policemen along EDSA that day. They were waiting for a chance to catch a "big fish" (so they can make headlines as one cop quipped). In the meantime several buses were stopping in the middle of the road and a lot were driving like crazy endangering the lives of their passengers. Aren't they "naghahari-harian" too?


Same day inside the airport on my way to Macau, while we were queued in line at the immigrations, I saw several airport personnel escorting politicians ahead of everyone else. Fine, I would take that as a common practice in this country BUT, BUT when I saw a different group of personnel escorting Koreans and Japanese ahead of us then I couldn't allow that.

My cooler head prevailed after I asked the counter staff about it and she replied "I don't know Sir there are a lot of that here. They do that everyday."

On my way to the Business Lounge I saw the Korean group with their gang having coffee in the coffee shop and I just decided to grab myself a seat and have coffee myself while eavesdropping to find out why they deserve to be Kings.

The older guy apparently is an immigration boss who was with these guys last night in a girlie bar. No other reason, they are not diplomats, not government visitors, just plain tourists who came here to have fun. What pissed me was when they left, the Korean handed over an envelope to the immigration boss. Fine, there was a little back and forth action but in ended in the hands of immigration boss just the same.

So for me a lot of politicians, foreigners included are naghahari-harian in our own country because crooks in the government service spoil them. Policemen who allowed non-government officials to drive counter flowing the traffic just to get ahead. Immigration officials who process entry and exit of people who can pay. Government staff who would issue you driver's license, permits, papers etc. for a fee for faster delivery. These situations leave the ordinary Pinoys or people like us who refuse to bribe to wait in line while they deliver lousy public service.

So I believe "Bawal ang naghahari-hariang de wangwang", aside from that gizmo which creates magic in traffic jams, was a call for government men to stop giving extraordinary services to moneyed pinoys or those who can pay but provide services to everyone -ALL PINOYS- because that is their right for paying their taxes.

After all in the same speech he said "Kayo ang Boss ko" -THE FILIPNOS ARE THE PRESIDENT'S BOSSES.