VIP culture

When the story broke about a lowlife VIP’s convoy using the EDSA busway, and then being allowed to get away with it by traffic enforcers, people saw only heels and no heroes in the story.

Amid the public opprobrium, Sen. Bong Revilla vehemently denied that it was his convoy, and lashed out in indignation at Edison “Bong” Nebrija for providing that “false information.”

Nebrija is the head of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority’s Task Force Special Operations Unit. He was not at the site when one of the MMDA traffic enforcers had informed him that they had stopped a convoy that had entered the northbound lane of the EDSA busway in Mandaluyong.

The enforcer told Nebrija that the VIP was Revilla. It’s unclear if the enforcer actually saw the senator, or was simply told that it was Revilla’s convoy.

Nebrija’s reaction says a lot about the entrenched VIP culture in this land of “mam/sir.” He reportedly teased the enforcer that he should take a selfie with the actor-turned-senator. (The enforcer should have taken the joke seriously.) Then, in what Nebrija described as a judgment call, he told the enforcer to let the convoy through.

His explanation surely earned him even more flak from the public: “Out of courtesy that the convoy was in a hurry, we allowed it.”

Along traffic-choked EDSA, who isn’t in a hurry?

Because private motorists and drivers of mass transport vehicles that aren’t buses have effectively lost two lanes of EDSA to buses and bicycles, some motorists have been tempted to use the busway, which is reserved only for buses, ambulances and marked government vehicles on an emergency mission.

To stop this, the MMDA raised the fines for unauthorized use of the EDSA Carousel, starting with a hefty P5,000 for the first offense.

But the rules apply, it seems, only for the hoi polloi, for whom P5,000 could be the monthly income.

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What rankled ordinary folks was the thought that those earning P5 million or perhaps 10 times more than that are exempted from the P5,000 fine – and are free to use the busway when they are in a hurry, which is surely all the time.

That was the impression created by Nebrija’s statement. And the special treatment accorded to Revilla’s supposed convoy was not even appreciated but in fact resented by the intended beneficiary. If it was really his convoy, Revilla sniffed, then the drivers should have been penalized with the fines.

The senator then harrumphed that he wanted the MMDA’s approved budget for 2024 recalled. It appeared to have spooked Nebrija’s direct boss, MMDA acting Chairman Romando Artes, who suspended Nebrija.

Revilla later backpedaled on the budget recall, which will require other lawmakers’ cooperation and may delay the enactment of the 2024 General Appropriations Act. But Nebrija’s suspension was not recalled by Artes, who explained that the punishment was for “going overboard” in identifying Revilla along with another alleged violator of the busway rule, former AKO BICOL party-list congressman Christopher Co.

To fine-tune the rules, Artes said that beginning Nov. 20, all government VIPs including those with protocol plates (attention senators and members of the judiciary) will also be barred from using the busway, except for the president and those in the line of succession in government: the vice president, speaker of the House, Senate president and chief justice.

The House of Representatives has already clarified that its members no longer use protocol plates (theirs is “8”). The government should go one step further and abolish all VIP protocol plates, except those for the top five officials of the land and the heads of foreign diplomatic missions. This VIP mentality has to go.

The MMDA has apparently identified the VIP in the supposed Revilla convoy, but Artes has refused to name the person. This is bad news for transparency and good governance in our dysfunctional democracy.

Artes has a point in saying that those apprehended for using the EDSA busway could be subjected to bashing so their identities should be protected. But this should apply only to private persons. Public personalities, particularly those in government, are supposed to lead by example. Their belief that they are entitled to exemption from the rules constitutes abuse of power that deserves to be exposed to the public.

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For that matter, people are still waiting for authorities to identify the VIP for whom traffic was halted at the corner of Tandang Sora and Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City. A Quezon City traffic cop referred to the “VP” who was about to pass – but Vice President Sara Duterte was in Mindanao at the time. A video of the incident went viral on Oct. 5, but the date of occurrence is as unclear as the identity of the VIP.

Noynoy Aquino, during his presidency, spoke for his “bosses” – we, the people – when he expressed exasperation over the widespread use of sirens or wang-wang and blinkers to part traffic. So many government officials and employees were using the devices, along with the diplomatic corps, the moneyed .001 percent, and any civilian who could afford the devices.

Drug dealers and other criminals combined the wang-wang with heavy tints on their vehicles plus fake or stolen license plates to facilitate their operations.

Since Noynoy Aquino banned wang-wang, the unauthorized use of blinkers and sirens has been dramatically minimized. What he failed to eliminate was the mindset that public officials deserve VIP treatment.

In progressive countries, the mindset is the reverse. Public officials and even celebrities are held to higher standards of behavior, and are guaranteed to face charges if caught committing even misdemeanors. Often, they are made to go through a so-called perp walk – escorted by cops in and out of police stations, courthouses and jails with full media coverage.

It’s an indication of backwardness in a society when there are two sets of rules: one for VIPs who tool around in convoys, and the other for the 99.9 percent of the population.