Punchline
Who will defy Guv Spines’ order?
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
While the ghost of the shotgun program still haunts me, I’m beginning to be a true fan of Guv Spines. Honest!
His latest directive to the public works and highways office in the province and the police to immediately dismantle and remove all road barriers erected on highways and roads by pea-brained barangay officials clinched it for me for now. Not only was his order timely, but it finally serves as a reminder that there are laws and rules to be complied for the public’s welfare. Too many laws are being flouted everywhere, not to mention traffic rules. And for too long, nobody in government and law enforcement agencies really cared, that is until a life is lost. No, not just any life the victim has to be a prominent person in the community.
Hopefully, it’s an order that will finally bring the barangay, schools and church officials to return to their senses, remembering that the highways are not theirs to dispose of as they please. The road barriers are plain and simple serious hazards whether night or day, especially if these are positioned in blind curve spots.
I mentioned “hopefully” because many orders are taken as “seasonal” in nature – meaning laws are enforced and complied with depending on the credibility (and should I say “integrity”) of the person and agency issuing the decree.
In this case, will Guv Spines order be taken seriously? Is he known to mean what he says and says what he means? (Translation: Takot ba sila kay Guv?). And if the Guv sees that he is not being obeyed, what will he do about it?
Abangan!
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But there is one thing that the Guv and the mayors can do to protect their communities against speeding maniacs behind the wheels in lieu of the make-shift barriers and barricades.
Without the barriers, indeed, the kids and parishioners appear helpless against the hell drivers. They need some protection, and who can best protect them but the barangay tanods who are normally just too happy to blow a whistle, or flag down a motorist for every reason?
Leave it to the tanods to do the yeoman’s job of handling traffic who are now quite comfortable with the task after regularly providing traffic escort services to funerals. But they must be equipped for this important pedestrian traffic task.
After spending P30 million needlessly for the shotguns, surely the cost of four reflectorized jacket and warning flags for barangays that host schools and churches along main highways will not be too much of a burden for governor and or the mayors.
Let’s save the lives of both motorists and pedestrians in our highways!
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THE ILOCANO PROSECUTOR ERRED. I am not about to pass judgment on the merits of the complaint filed against the suspects in the Mayor Julian Resuello case but I find the decision of Ilocos Sur prosecutor Reynaldo Lacasandile dismissing the complaint utterly wanting in legal and moral justification.
He averred that since the confessions of arrested suspects were made more than a year later, “long after termination of the conspiracy, the evidence and testimony presented is considered “inadmissible against his co-conspirators.”
If that were true, why did the government recently order the manhunt for a military officer who was tagged to be knowledgeable about the conspiracy in that led to Ninoy Aquino’s assassination 26 years ago if his eventual testimony would be inadmissible in court? The Ilocano prosecutor’s legal position goes against the very grain of the position taken by the government in Ninoy’s case alone.
Either DOJ Sec. Raul Gonzalez is truly dumb or Mr. Lacasandile is too smart for his own good.
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THE VIDEOKE DEBATE. Just when the Dagupan City government decided to feel good by gifting the city’s barangays with videoke machines for the residents’ entertainment, comes Cagayan de Oro’s Rep. Rufus Rodriguez filing a bill seeking to ban videoke machines.
With millions of Pinoys wanting to sound like Frank Sinatra, Martin Nievera, Madonna, and Regine Velasquez, Mr. Rodriquez can expect a riot in his hands. With Filipinos fabled in the region as natural music artists, expect the violent opposition to be led by Pinoy champ Manny Pacquiao soon as he returns home from his fight with Ricky Hatton in Las Vegas.
Can you imagine him being arrested for promoting and owning an illegal machine? No wonder, he thinks he can run for congress. With bills like Rodriguez’s, he can do much better. Indeed, a bill making boxing the national sport has more chances becoming law than a ban on the videoke machine.
But Cong. Rufus is not exactly out of synch and out of tune. One cannot but agree with his observation that not a few violent incidents inside restaurants and beer houses equipped with videoke machines continue to be reported. Still neighbors in communities file cases if not strangle each other for playing their loud machines with the intent to kill with their shrill out-of-tune voices blaring in the middle of a quiet siesta and often in the still of the night.
The man’s got a point. Something must be done at least to regulate the use of these machines. How many lives have been lost, children orphaned by the song “My Way”?
So, give that bill a chance. After all, the life you save may be yours.
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