‘Thugs in yellow shirt’ a PH blight

As an American married to a Filipino woman I have grown to love this great nation and its people. However, the pervasive corruption among traffic enforcers in this country is a blight that must be stamped out.

A few days ago I rented a vehicle to go to Pampanga. Near Alabang, I was stopped for no apparent reason by a thug in yellow shirt. With an ironic smile on his face, he demanded my driver’s license and P2,500. He never specified a violation and it was abundantly clear that I was being extorted for no other reason than that I was a foreigner.

Though at first he threatened to confiscate my license, after an animated discussion with my wife he settled for P1,000 surreptitiously placed in his slimy hands just below the van’s window and out of public view. He then gave me directions as to the route I would follow, only to be stopped moments later on that very route by “street crocodiles” like him.

This time I did not readily comply and after a lengthy and vociferous argument, their supervisor showed up. He assured me that he would not issue me a ticket or confiscate my license; he merely wanted to know the details of what I had just gone through. He then offered to drive me to Pampanga.

He was a gentleman true to his word and after he finished his shift, I hired him as a driver as I wanted to avoid the infamous “crocodile enforcers” I have unfortunately encountered several times while driving rental vehicles.

The fact that a traffic enforcer makes a paltry sum of about P500 a day contributes to—but does not excuse—this type of corruption which gives the Filipino people a black eye. This type of disgraceful conduct by men who are supposedly officers of the law makes Philippine traffic laws the laughingstock of the world.

—NICHOLAS LIGNOLA,

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