We can stage protest to allow us to break the law?

We received a very emotional (angry) appeal from one of our readers, reacting to the traffic gridlock-causing protests staged by truckers recently to convince the authorities not to implement a long-standing law against "overloading".

Quoting our reader, "If there were laws that we feel are not fair or outdated or unconstitutional, the right thing to do is to convince our lawmakers to come up with legislation to repeal it or scrap it all together — not stage protests that would inconvenience the populace."

Our loyal lady reader of this column and viewer of its TV counterpart, who requests not to be named here because she is known to the ranks of these protesting truckers and values their personal friendships, cited past similar events when groups of public utility drivers threatened massive protests when word went out that the police authorities had decided to strictly implement traffic laws and regulations as a means to alleviate traffic gridlocks mainly due to drivers’ undisciplined culture of wantonly disregarding traffic signs and established rules. She can only blurt out, "The gall of these people protesting against the implementation of the laws? It only means they want anarchy!"

What actually happened last week was that the management of the North Tollways, the Manila North Tollways Corporation (MNTC) possibly alarmed with the number of accidents caused by runaway trucks or those that loose their brakes, decided to implement R.A. 8794. One of the provisions of the law makes it unlawful for trucks to have more than 13.5 metric tons per axel. They confiscated the licenses and issued Traffic Violation Tickets to drivers who broke the law, which can be retrieved from the LTO upon payment of a fine equivalent to 25 percent of their registration. They were shown to the nearest exit so as not to further endanger the lives and limbs of the other Tollway users with vehicles that are unsafe, considering that vehicles that carry loads more that they were designed to, have no breaks to safely stop while carrying such over-heavy loads. And the trucks represent only about 8,000 of the 140,000 that use the Tollways — that’s quite a lopsided equation. The MNTC had no choice but to protect the welfare of all users of the Tollways including that of the truck drivers.

So, the truckers protest so that they’d be allowed to break the law.

Isuzu in the forefront for environment-friendly transport

No less than Isuzu Philippines Corporation (IPC) president Yoshifumi Komura and vice president for corporate business division Art Balmadrid made sure of their presence during the launch of " a world-class Philippine-made air-conditioned jeepney" at the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) compound in Quezon City recently.

Four of these jumbo jeepneys were actually on display during the event, which was also attended by government officials lead by Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) secretary Leandro Mendoza together with LTO head Anneli Lontoc and LTFB chair Ma. Elena Bautista and joined by known personages in the transport industry. These 30-seater coaster-type vehicles, which were redesigned and reinvented by Orlando F. Marquez, national president of the Philippine Jeepney Operators & Drivers Alliance Foundation (PJODAF) are all equipped with brand-new Isuzu Powertrain diesel engines that are environment-friendly (Euro-compliant).

During the simple launching ceremonies IPC’s top Filipino executive, our good friend Art Balmadrid was quoted as saying, "IPC entered the Powertrain business in support of the government’s program to repower old trucks and jeepneys with brand new diesel engines that can help reduce pollution and bring about cleaner air in the country."

Toyota’s formal changing of the guard

As traditionally Toyota, a formal send-off for Mr. Nobuharu Tabata, outgoing Toyota Motor Philippines Corporation (TMPC) president for the four straight years that TMPC made a record-setting feat of holding on to the local automotive industry’s Triple-Crown of top sales achievement in passenger cars, commercial vehicles and the overall industry sales, this evening at the Makati Shangri-la. The very mild-mannered and soft-spoken Tabata-san, well-loved by the local motoring media, shall be taking on new challenges as he goes back to Japan reportedly to head a subsidiary company of Toyota Motor Company.

To fill in the big shoes of his predecessor, incoming president Mr. Hiroshi Ito shall also be given the welcome honors during the formal "changing of the guard" ceremonies tonight.

Our warm welcome to Mr. Ito and an emotional farewell to our good friend Tabata-san.

Honda Media Challenge Awards night

The Blue Onion at Eastwood City was again the setting for the giving out of awards for the recently concluded Jazz VTEC Media Challenge. This must be a favorite of Honda Cars Philippines deputy head for marketing, Arnel Doria, who made sure that diet drinks were served even if they were not part of the set menu after I again raised a friendly howl, which I do whenever they’re not available. Gee, thanks my friend.

As expected it was a fun-filled affair with all the cheers and jeers that come natural whenever motoring journalists get together in events like this where individual or team driving prowess is at stake. More so, considering that this local Honda media event, which had established itself as an institution in its many years of running, had a two-year hiatus. It was revived only with the game approval of the mild-mannered but very sporty Honda Cars Philippines president Mr. Takashi Sekiguchi, who, aside from being a badminton enthusiast, having played much of it in his varsity days in Japan, is also a keen lover of racing himself.

Well, our Philippine STAR team came up runner-up despite the gallant efforts of Manny delos Reyes, Andy Leuterio, Jeff Reyes and Lester Dizon with our motoring editor Dong Magsajo as team manger and chief cheerleader. This year’s champion is the Bulletin team, with a powerhouse combination of veterans Anjo Perez, Popong Andolong, Aris Ilagan and rookie Aaron Fabila, who also rose to the occasion.

The year’s top driver award went to Bulletin’s Aris Ilagan, which made racing living legend and my TV co-host Pocholo Ramirez to blurt out, "There must have been no other drivers competing" in jest of course or was it?

The institution — the Honda Media Challenge — lives on!

E-mail glitch or whatever – something goofed up!

I don’t know what happened but I just found out that there is a bunch of e-mail messages that I failed to answer, some dating back to last year. Actually, I had a change of Internet Service Provider sometime early 2005 and this change together with my e-mail address may have screwed up everything — to my utter embarrassment to those who wrote me without having received a decent reply — and my apologies are a must, I’m really sorry guys. So, let me make up through the coming weeks starting from now.

Let me start with this letter from Fr. Ilde Dimaano of the Archdiocese of Lipa, Batangas. He said he reads this column and watches its TV counterpart regularly — this may have completely changed though as he wrote me last August sans a reply for 5 months — and I would understand.

Anyway, according to the kind priest they have an FM station there owned and operated by the Archdiocese, which he hopes they can utilize to educate people about obeying traffic rules and road safety.

Well, that’s right smack my alley and that of our group, SPMJ, Society of Philippine Motoring Journalists and please do try to write again and update me about what’s going on and I look forward to work with you on this advocacy we share.

I also got a letter last July from Mr. Lloyd F. Intalan trying to find out if he could get a personal copy of the SPMJ Teaching Modules for safe and responsible road users that we give free to schools.

Well, at the moment we only give these to schools where we conduct the ‘free seminars’ to students and also to their teachers on how to effectively use the ‘modules’ and to continue sharing the knowledge to other students.

But what you can do is probably help us convince some schools to have these seminars held for their students and teachers and help reduce the number of our youth falling victim to road accidents.

And finally for this week may I also acknowledge the letter sent in last March by "Gelest" of Chula Vista, California, who I guess reads, or used to read, our column through our philstar.com website.

More next week and again, sorry guys.

Another notch for SPMJ’s "Early Warning" seminars

It was the North Fairview High School located inside the North Fairview Park subdivision where the latest "Early Warning" seminar of SPMJ, the Society of Philippine Motoring Journalists was held last weekend.

This is the 3rd school adopted by Toyota Motor Philippines through its Toyota Commonwealth dealership where the top students were taught how to be responsible and safe road users and teachers taught how to further teach the other students the same life-saving topic by using the ‘Teaching Modules’ designed and created by the National Center for Transportation Studies (NCTS) of the University of the Philippines as commissioned by SPMJ to further promote its advocacy of teaching the youth on safe road usage.

School principal Dr. Josefina M. Pamplina eagerly and warmly welcomed SPMJ’s "Early Warning" seminar, which was arranged through the initiatives of Engr. Victor Roxas of the Rotary Club of Neopolitan Fairview and Mrs. Consuelo Sison of the Tulong Daan Project. The hard-working principal mustered a total of forty-one teachers who prepared action plans on ways to integrate road safety in their subjects and how to improve road safety awareness.

Young students count as the most vulnerable victims of road accidents, many of them fatal, as the latest studies reveal. These free SPMJ "Early Warning" seminars designed to teach our elementary and high school students on how to cope with the dangers of the road as they go to and from school can mean saving their limbs if not their lives as they go through their daily routine. If you are a parent of a young student, it is imperative on you to convince your child’s school to avail of it. And it would not even cost the school anything. There are kind and responsible corporate citizen-benefactors like Toyota Motor Philippines that "adopt" schools to underwrite the costs of the seminar. Hand-in-hand with the Society of Philippine Motoring Journalists let’s all help our children survive the dangers of the road.

Happy Motoring!!!

For comments & inquiries e-mail to: [email protected].