Punchline
Practical solution to helmet ordinance
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
MANY local governments have began issuing executive orders and ordinances to combat and neutralize the criminal syndicates that use riding-in-tandem hitmen and thieves for their operations. Manila wants jackets with plate numbers emblazoned on the back. Mandaluyong wants all motorcycle riders with backriders to present ID’s and other documents to prove they are relatives. Dagupan came up with its own –helmet ordinance.
Clearly, local governments are desperate for practical solutions in order to beat the criminal syndicates in their own game, and protect their constituents. But as if the situation is not complex enough, there are libertarians who would rather have everything by the book and tie the hands of government than solve and remove the threats to everyone’s life. Give us freedom or give us death?
The proposed national ID law that seeks to protect law-abiding citizens against criminals can’t even get to first base because we invoke some freedom stated in the constitution. The plan to have all sim cards and cellphones registered again to protect law-abiding citizens against criminals can’t even get to the batting stage because we invoke a basic right enshrined in the constitution, never mind the real threats to all of us.
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UNSOLICITED ADVICE. The case filed by former judge Vic Llamas against the Dagupan City government over the new ordinance spelling out measures and contingencies to protect its citizenry is a case in point. The legal arguments he cited in opposing the ordinance are well founded since these are anchored on everything basic about the law, so basic that the criminal syndicates fully realize what works for them and how to work around the same laws that Mr. Llamas wants to be upheld.
Even with my background on laws limited to plots of TV-movie adventure and crime stories, I don’t see how the city can defend the ordinance at all. The only practical defense I can imagine is for the city to withdraw the ordinance (and for Congress to repeal the helmet law), and just simply do what is necessary to stop the criminals. Treat all motorcycle riders with back riders suspect just like the way it was when there was no helmet law. The law says any suspect can be stopped for questioning, at least that’s what I learned from TV series unless Mr. Llamas can cite a law that our cops can’t do that. Gosh, we are even stopped on the road by traffic enforcers in Metro Manila on a mere suspicion that we violated a swerving law!
Recall that before the helmet law, there were few incidents involving hitmen riding in tandem because they became easy targets themselves for the police for wearing helmets that hid their faces, and therefore, were suspects! So, only a few dared wear those crash helmets preferring to get lost in the crowd by not wearing helmets like everyone else.
I would liken the proposed situation to one mantra that I’ve learned from those who dared to be great: “Don’t ask for permission, just do it and simply ask for forgiveness later.” Translation: Take risks that others wont take!
So my unsolicited advice to Mayor Belen Fernandez, also in her capacity as regional chair of the Regional Peace and Order Council, be done with that ordinance, and simply do what needs to be done to protect innocent lives, including those of the likes of Mr. Llamas and Mr. Jojo Guadiz. Remove the ordinance and just do what it intended to do.
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WATCH FOR EBOLA CARRIERS. Over the past week, we have been reading about the recent high alert issued by the Department of Health in the country. Reading it gave me the assurance that all’s well, the government has the situation under control.
But I was jolted when a good friend, Dagupeño Ed Manese of Magsaysay Lines called to inform me that there is an alert for Dagupan on ebola! Whoa! How could that be, I asked? He said the DOH and the shipping industry met and did a mapping of shipping companies and schools that host Nigerian students and seamen. Dagupan has been identified to have maritime schools that Nigerians attend as students.
So what about Nigerians, you ask. Nigeria is one of the countries where ebola outbreak has been reported. Last August 6, an official of the Lagos state health commission again confirmed that seven persons have Ebola symptoms and are in quarantine after primary contact with the man who flew to Lagos and died of the disease last month. That news was reported a day after a doctor had tested positive for ebola after treating the traveler and others may have been infected in Lagos, a city of 21 million.
Our maritime schools would be well-advised not to risk a possible outbreak originating from their schools by suspending their program for Nigerians and other West Africans.
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DANGEROUS. For now, the health officials maintain that the country is ebola-free, and we have determined as well that there have been no new arrivals from Nigeria to Dagupan since the outbreak in that country.
Here’s an Ebola 101 brief: Ebola is a severe, infectious, often fatal disease in humans and primates (monkeys, gorillas and chimpanzees) caused by infection from the Ebola virus. Ebola can be transmitted through close contact with: blood secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals, body fluids and stools of an infected person, through contaminated needles and soiled linen used by infected patients, or direct contact with the body of a deceased person
Signs and symptoms of Ebola infection include: fever, headache, intense weakness, joint and muscle pains and sore throat; this is followed by vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding; sometimes, rash, red eyes, hiccups and bleeding from body openings may be seen in some patients.
Why should you know this? It’s more dangerous and treacherous because unlike AIDS/ HIV, the symptoms are no different from other ordinary communicable diseases…and because there is no known cure!
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THE FARMERS’ PLIGHT. The monsoon rains and typhoons are back with a vengeance.
When the rains pour, urbanites worry about flooding in the streets and access to their offices and their children’s schools. Farmers worry about losing all their harvests and getting into deeper trouble with their loan sharks. Media talks about alerts and potential millions of damages to lives and properties.
Once the rains disappear, urbanites go their merry ways. The media reports a summary of statistics, the damages and the heroic acts of some. The farmers? Having become merely part of media’s statistics, they sit on their haunches, looking forlorn wondering how they can repay their loans with no possible help coming from government.
Such has been the routine fate of the farmers for decades. They are deemed important because they produce the food to be served on for our table. They are provided meager incentives as they fend for themselves. Then all too soon, they become mere statistics with no face once their produce are wiped out. No wonder, many farmers’ children wont even think of going to school to earn a degree in agriculture.
If this country values the role farmers play in national development and economy, then it must change its mindset and start treating farming like any other economic activity. Businessmen insure their vehicles and buildings to make their ventures viable. Thankfully, government guarantees free health services to indigents to keep them productive.
But why can’t government provide small farmers tilling no more than 3 hectares a chance to survive calamities with a subsidized insurance? So they can pay their debts over losses they had no control over! So they can plant again without being at the mercy of loan sharks again?
Cong. Gina de Venecia already filed a bill compelling government to provide insurance but it’s passage is still not certain. However, there is something that the provincial government can do today with its development fund. It can work out a plan with the Crop Insurance Corp. of the Phils. for the small farmers before the next monsoon rains wreak havoc in our farmlands again.
If Guv Spines is thinking of another great legacy that will earn him unparalleled goodwill, this can be it!
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