EDITORIAL — VIP disease

No week passes, it seems, without some VIP – or the VIP’s security escort or factotum – entering the EDSA busway, and then demanding to be let off or driving away when apprehended by traffic enforcers.

The vehicles and government officials entitled to use the EDSA Carousel have been widely publicized. These are ambulances that are actually carrying patients, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles, and the convoys of the incumbent president, vice president, Senate president, House speaker and the chief justice.

Yet there is a continually growing list of people who keep entering the busway, believing they are entitled to VIP treatment. They include former Ilocos Sur governor Luis Singson, Sen. Raffy Tulfo’s son Quezon City Rep. Ralph Wendel Tulfo as well as vehicles with the “7” protocol plate of senators belonging to Francis Escudero when he was not yet the Senate president, and a white Cadillac Escalade registered to a company owned by the family of Sen. William Gatchalian.

The nation still doesn’t know the passengers of the vehicles with “7” plates, or the owner of two SUVs with two motorcycle escorts of the Philippine National Police Highway Patrol Group that entered the busway last week in Ortigas. The HPG members initially confronted the traffic enforcers and claimed their passenger was a ranking PNP official. Both PNP chief Rommel Francisco Marbil and HPG director Eleazar Matta have denied being the passenger.

Last Sunday, vehicles of senator Manny Pacquiao – one without a rear license plate or even a conduction sticker – were apprehended for entering the busway. Pacquiao was not a passenger. Why are vehicles without license plates allowed to ply the streets?

The VIP mindset is catching. On Feb. 7, a vehicle of the US embassy with diplomatic plates entered the busway. When asked for his license, the driver showed a US passport. When the traffic enforcer took a photo of the passport, an American passenger was seen on video scolding the enforcer and accusing him of threatening to steal US diplomatic material. The American demanded that the photo be deleted, saying the photo might be forwarded to the Chinese embassy – a point that drew protests from the Chinese. The American also advised the enforcer to talk to a high-ranking PNP official.

Do some Americans still see Filipinos as their “little brown brothers”? This VIP mentality is a disease. It must be eradicated before it infects more people.