‘Wang-wang’ lives

Everyone beware: If a VIP and his backup guards are on the road, it’s your duty to recognize that there’s a VIP nearby and it’s your obligation to get out of his way. If you fail, it’s your fault. The VIP’s vehicle is entitled to muscle you off the road, and the bodyguards are empowered to draw their firearms just in case you didn’t get the message the first time around.

This is the “wang-wang” mentality on steroids. How many times have we seen its brazen display? The old style was for VIPs to be escorted by cops on motorcycles with bright, blinking lights, accompanied by loud sirens. Today’s new style is supposedly more civilized, more subtle. No “wang-wang” or hazard lights, just VIPs whose backup vehicles tail them closely, and who will bully motorists who, in the maze of Manila’s traffic, find themselves on the wrong lane at the wrong time.

In the latest incident on Congressional Avenue in Quezon City last Monday, the bodyguard verbalized it so eloquently: “Pu–ng ina nyo! Hindi nyo nakita may ine-escort kami?” The family that got in the convoy’s way suddenly had the burden to recognize them as VIPs! And so what? Did that mean the family—and everyone else—should yield? And for what offense? For driving too close to them, even if it was they who actually pushed their way dangerously close?

What gives these VIPs the right to treat public thoroughfares like their private fiefdom? What makes them think they can swerve in and out of traffic, jeopardizing the safety of hapless motorists and pedestrians? From whence comes the effrontery?

We sound the alarm over all forms of road rage at this time of year, starting with the All Saints Day weekend all the way to the frenzy of the Christmas holidays. Remember the 1998 All Saints Day traffic altercation at Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina, where a pregnant woman was shot and killed, and her two-year-old son injured.

Expect even worse traffic in the months to come.

But the Monday incident on Congressional Avenue is no ordinary road rage fueled by gridlock. It is rage displayed by hired guns, whether they are a government security detail or private bodyguards. It is rage inoculated from accountability by the power of the VIP being “escorted.” These VIPs are convinced they are above the law—and their bodyguards behave accordingly.

This is the shameless, unabashed flaunting of power on public roads by public servants living off the public coffers, by bullying the very public whose taxes pay for their lavish lifestyles.

How to deter these abusive VIPs, their bodyguards, and their convoys? The first problem of victims is how to trace the offending vehicles, and the Philippine National Police and Land Transportation Office must be ready and equipped to help in the search. Already, in the Congressional Avenue case, one vehicle’s car plates had been “switched” from another vehicle. The government must strictly enforce the rule that every vehicle must bear car plates or conduction stickers. Indeed, the government must finally do away with vanity plates that are actually badges of privilege.

Also, the victims must be assisted in identifying the offending bodyguards. The government, to its credit, has centralized the assignment of the security detail of senior officials. Surely their logbooks will show whether or not government security personnel were involved, and who among them were on duty at the time.

Law enforcers must also help victims secure the available CCTV security videos in the area and the cell phone records of all the suspects during the relevant time.

And we call upon Mayor Patrick Meneses of Bulacan, Bulacan, whose family’s vehicles have been linked to the Congressional Avenue incident, to come out and answer questions. That is the burden of public power, and the burden of having guards who have guns. People are allowed to carry guns only for their defense. When those guns are brandished for aggression, they lose any moral claim to carry guns. The backup vehicle is registered to Meneses’ kin. It had two passengers—the driver and the bodyguard. To conceal their identities is to take part in a cover-up.

On Congressional Avenue, after the family shouted to the gun-toting bodyguard that two children were in the car, did he back down because he suddenly developed a conscience? Well, suffice it to say that right before he boarded the backup vehicle, he turned around and flashed the dirty finger at the family, including the woman on the front seat and her 5-year-old and 6-year-old granddaughters in the back.

That is the contempt with which he, his masters and their ilk hold the rest of us who simply want to live quiet lives.