Opportunity knocks for P-Noy

Great opportunity is knocking at P-Noy’s door but as the Little Prince has taught us: “what is essential is invisible to the eye”.

There is a possibility that the President might dismiss it as “non-presidential” or seemingly insignificant, but that posture however, if, the President actually solves “this” problem, President Noynoy Aquino would cause such a national change and give real meaning to his slogan “Daang Matuwid”.

To appreciate the matter, kindly read the article slowly and don’t jump paragraphs.

We have a national problem that has been killing our people.

On a slow day this problem instantly kills one to three Filipinos. On a really bad day, this problem kills one or two dozens.

As a direct consequence of the problem and the killings, both government and private sector are spending billions each year to stop this elusive enemy and yet they fail!

If this problem does not maim or kill you instantly, there is a high probability that it is already destroying your quality of life by destroying the environment you live or work in. It is most likely that this problem has already started to take you on the road towards terminal illness.

Few people stop to think and realize that this problem hurts our economy daily, infects our moral fiber through a hundred instances of corruption daily, and it is a publicly recognized source of criminal activity at both the national and local government levels.

The reason the problem has never been addressed properly is because it is a mutant, a chameleon, something that is called by many names resulting in many good solutions but never solving the correct problem.

That is the reason why ONLY THE PRESIDENT can solve this problem.

We need One Sheriff to lead the posse because right now there are too many “experts” but no one really IN-CHARGE, in authority or in control. And when we have confusion and conflict, no solution will ever be good enough. In the mean time, the corrupt and the belligerent all have a picnic at our risks and our expense.

Only the President has both political and logistical means to address the CHAOS ON PHILIPPINE ROADS.

Yes the big problem and opportunity that knocks for P-Noy is putting a stop to the CHAOS ON PHILIPPINE ROADS.

We cannot have a driving system where the law is decided or made up by the person sitting behind the wheel. A tricycle driver decides what road and which part of the highway he wants to stay in.

A private motorist as long as he stays in the maximum speed limit can stay on the passing lane and force everyone else to break the law or pass each other on the slow side! Many roads don’t even have painted lane dividers!

What we have in the Philippines is a mix of all the wrong and deadly things you can put on the road and stupidly label it as part of Philippine culture and call it a system. We don’t have system. What we have is a mob of amoebas that gelled in co-existence. 

You cannot claim to have a system if traffic laws, speed limits, a number coding are segmented, in conflict, and designed to deprive motorists and the riding public, instead of enhancing our transportation system. What we have is a legal tapeworm segmented by local governments for their convenience, profit and collusion.

Some people believe the government must take back control of all major and national highways.

All the laws that have been passed at both the national and local levels concerning operating a vehicle will amount to poop if operatives of the TMG and the LTO are denounced for harassment and collecting bribes instead of enforcing the laws.

The MMDA may feel “modern and efficient” about no-contact arrests, but in a THIRD WORLD culture, it is the experience of the arrest, the realization of the inconvenience, and the subsequent coming to terms with the offense that teaches the lesson, not a ticket and not the fine.

What respect for the law will we establish if local “traffic enforcers” of every city and town target private motorists and company drivers, but are blind to jeepney, bus and tricycle drivers IGNORING the law because every town and city has their own payola system?

At the very least, the President should clean up the entire Department of Transport, which has become a pasture for useless, continuously paid Undersecretaries.

When will the President hold the Department of Labor, the LTO, the LTFRB DIRECTLY responsible for failure to enforce minimum wages, humane and safe driving time and limits especially for taxi drivers?

Why is it that publishers and editors can be dragged to jail because of a “libel” complaint against a journalist, but we can’t do the same to bus and taxi operators who don’t pay legal wages, allow unsafe driving policies such as “straight 12 or 24 hour driving shifts, and have no control or accountability over the drivers they hire?

The fact that “drivers” can just run away and disappear tells us something is very wrong in the process.

The latest solution that has been suggested is more speed guns and concrete lane separators that will run up to P90 million and beyond. An elephant does not have to run in order to squash a car, same thing happens when a taxi brakes in front of a bus that is ten times bigger than the taxi.

President Noynoy needs to call in a posse and pull the handbrake on the haos.

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