Trisikads, habal-habals, kuligligs are illegal

It’s the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of our Blessed Virgin Mary. Catholic doctrine teaches us that our Mama Mary was conceived without any stain (in Latin, macula) of Original Sin, which is a dogma. In short, Mama Mary was dubbed free from any hereditary sin that we acquired from Adam and Eve. Incidentally, many Catholics mistake this dogma with the incarnation of her son our Lord Jesus Christ, which happened during the Annunciation.

This was a Christian belief written by the Early Church Fathers and was never made into a dogma simply because it was widely accepted as truth and no one questioned it. The Feast of the Immaculate Conception was celebrated by Christians when Pope Sixtus IV asked it to be celebrated on this date, even if he did not declare it a dogma of the Catholic Church. This is why it is a holiday of obligation for us Catholics.

The Immaculate Conception was solemnly defined as a dogma by Pope Pius IX in his Ineffabilis Deus on Dec.8, 1854 stating that this is supported in Scripture when the Angel Gabriel greeted Mama Mary “Hail, Full of Grace”. When he was in Cebu (twice he appeared on my TV show) my good friend, former Protestant Pastor Steve Ray, author of the book “Crossing the Tiber” gave us a dramatic example of what full of grace meant. He placed a half-empty glass of water in front of us and said, “If air is sin and water is grace, the glass is half full of grace and half full of sin.” He then poured more water into the glass to overflowing and said, “Now that the glass is full of grace/water where then is room for sin/air?”

A more dramatic story is the one of St. Bernadette Soubirous who was a 14-year-girl in 1858 when Mama Mary appeared before her in Lourdes, France. When she asked the apparition who she was, she answered, “I am the Immaculate Conception”. This happened four years after Pope Pius IX declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The news of this dogma may have reached the great capitals of Europe through carrier pigeon or horseback since the telegraph wasn’t yet invented, but who would think that this would be known in a small village of Lourdes?

Today, Lourdes has close to ten million pilgrims that visit each year. When I went to Lourdes, I could feel the presence of the Blessed Virgin Mother. But more importantly, the reason why God made her immaculate was to protect her; otherwise, when the Holy Spirit overshadowed her, she would have died instantly. In protecting the Mother of God from the stain of Original Sin, she became our co-redemptrix as she carried with her our redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Remember the “Kuliglig Revolt” in Manila last week? The Kuliglig is simply a bigger trisikad with a rickety engine and used for the same purpose - transportation. Such contraptions should never be allowed on the road simply because they are home-built and do not follow any safety standards from protecting the driver or its passengers. Even its brakes are dubious at best. But what happened in Manila last week was that the kuliglig drivers resisted when the Manila Police dispersed them.

The big question is, “Why did Manila authorities turn a blind eye to the kuliglig when they knew that such contraptions shouldn’t be allowed on the road?” The answer is simple. Politicians allowed the kuliglig to flourish because just like sidewalk vendors or illegal squatters, they are potential voters who can make them win in the elections. You can ask the same question about those illegal trisikads in Metro Cebu or the illegal habal-habal that ply interior areas, which are even more dangerous for passengers.

Since my good friend, Mr. Bunny Pages has taken the cudgels to lead the so-called Metro Cebu Traffic Council (MCTC), allow me to pose this challenge to him and his group on how to solve these very tricky issues. First and foremost, these vehicles are not considered public conveyances, so why are they on our streets? These are the issues that I would like the MCTC to address rather that look for potholes to fill up, which in my book is nothing but inefficiency of the public works department of the LGUs.

As for CITOM Chief Jack Jakosalem and the Cebu City Council, they ought to know that Cebu City’s becoming the world’s 9th Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) destination means that our beloved city has become like New York City, which according to crooner Frank Sinatra, is “a city that never sleeps.” Hence, we need traffic enforcers manning our major intersections at night. That means increasing the budget of CITOM, that is if City Hall has the money for it. These are just a few of the nagging problems that we are facing in Cebu City regarding traffic. Let’s hope that the City Council would move to solve these problems.

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