"IS it just my imagination," a friend asked me, "or have cars with sirens deluged our streets of late?"
At the time my friend asked me this, which was my birthday last Friday, I had just had another experience with one. I was on Edsa highway on my way to Makati City when a big car (my son identified it as a Ford Expedition; I don't know about these things) began honking at me from behind. He had all sorts of lights blinking on the front of his car, making it look like a disco, and a siren was flashing bright red on the roof of his car. Thank God for small blessings, it wasn't wailing angrily at the world. I was on the left lane and had a slew of cars in front of me. I had absolutely no idea what possessed him to go into honking mode. I myself had absolutely no intention of budging even if there weren't any cars in front of me.
Eventually, he spun to his right, and wove through the other cars, like an ambulance. I wanted to get the idiot's number, but saw only the number "8."
If I'm not mistaken, that means congressman. I was right, an idiot.
No, I assured my friend, it was not her imagination getting away with her. I've had the experience more and more frequently of late. The most infuriating of which is the procession of black cars that now and then tear down at me from the opposite direction -- "counterflow," we felicitously call it -- sirens blaring. If they had a loudspeaker, they would probably be screaming, "You don't step aside, you die!"
That's the reason I sympathized completely with the horde of people who called up Arnold Clavio and Ali Sotto's program on dzBB last week to protest the injustice of Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez's driver. A motorist named Jo complained that Gonzalez's escorts poked their guns at him when he tried to pass their slow-moving two-car convoy on Edsa. Gonzalez's driver, a fellow named Roman, justified the use of force, saying that when motorists see a convoy of government cars, they should get the hell out of the way. When Clavio protested this, saying he had as much right to the road as a government official, Roman retorted, "I dare him to say that to the Presidential Security Group and see what they will do to him."
Contacted by the Inquirer, Gonzalez denied knowing Roman personally. He said he had a number of drivers and knew them only by their faces. He denied as well that his escorts poked their guns at the hapless motorist. But he agreed with Roman's viewpoint about public officials being treated regally on streets. "If people are complaining about the sirens and blinkers, then all Cabinet men should take them off." The reason Cabinet men had them, he said, was that they "have work schedules that are not usual to ordinary people who can dictate their time."
Later, Gonzalez spoke at Clavio's and Sotto's program and enlarged on his views, saying if people were complaining about sirens and blinkers, then all ambulances and police cars should take them off too.
Gonzalez should be thankful he does not live in a country like the US where his exaggerated sense of self-importance would have been met by more than derision. He would not last a day in public office at the public uproar he would stir. And he is our justice secretary! Truly we have plunged into an Orwellian nightmare, where Newspeak is the official language, and officials are called by the opposite of what they are, or do. Is it possible he cannot grasp the difference between police cars and ambulances using sirens and public officials doing the same? Quite incidentally, even police cars and ambulances may not use sirens all the time, only when they are chasing criminals or rushing dying patients to hospitals.
The operative word is emergency. What emergency are Cabinet officials trying to meet on a daily basis?
I can, in fact, think of two compelling reasons why Cabinet officials in particular should suffer exactly the same fate as benighted commuters, or be reduced to complete immobility. The first is that it would give them a glimpse of how pretty much the rest of their countrymen live, the better to increase their sense of urgency about alleviating poverty, or at least about using taxes to improve traffic, among other national afflictions, and not just their bank accounts. The second is related to the first. The fact that this country has become the second most corrupt country in Asia must suggest that most public officials, chief of them Cabinet officials, are barefaced crooks. Why should we want to assure that they will get to where they want to go in record time when all that means is that we will be fleeced more thoroughly and swiftly?
But quite apart from this, what gall this fellow has. I myself am trying to meet deadlines all the time, but I do not assume my time is more precious to me or to the country than that of a doctor, or engineer, or teacher. Maybe more than that of a politician or lawyer, but that is another story. I can assure Gonzalez his preoccupations are not more important than mine; they are infinitely less so. At least, I use my time to try to better this nation. He uses his time only to mangle the word "justice." Wasn't he the fellow who told us the best way to greet the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy's news that we were the second most corrupt nation in Asia was to ignore it? Wasn't he the fellow who, apprised of witnesses who were willing to testify against the First Family's complicity in the illegal numbers game "jueteng," proposed to go after the witnesses? No, I'm not surprised he should think Cabinet officials are not ordinary mortals but kings of the road.
A friend of mine who heard Gonzalez talk on Clavio-Sotto's program hit the nail on the head. "Kaya naman pala abusado yung driver," he said, "abusado yung amo."