Ignorance of law now an excuse - GOTCHA by Jarius Bondoc

The woman glared at the news camera. Never would she give up to the Coast Guard the ancient jars her husband had scooped from a sunken galleon off the coast of Sta. Cruz, Zambales. "We worked hard for these," she pointed to the loot she was selling at the flea market, "Let the National Museum people dive for their own wares."

If her tone was adamant, it certainly was borne from ignorance. The law states that all such historic finds form part of the national heritage, to be surrendered to and preserved by the National Museum. It is no excuse to not know it. Yet the lawmen let her be. They, too, couldn’t understand the order from higher-ups to confiscate the loot and arrest the fences. Same with local officials who grumbled about Manila officials cutting short the one time in many years that the locales were making a killing from the dynamited waters. Even the television reporter, in his blissful ignorance, was ready to cry human rights violation the moment policemen grabbed the treasures from the fisherman’s wife.

Such is the state of this country. No one obeys the law because no one knows what it is. Everyone protests about his right without bothering to learn the responsibility that goes with it. And those who are supposed to be experts and enforcers of the law either let it pass or twist it to suit their own purposes.

Thus, the chaos in our streets. Accost a jeepney driver for tying up traffic while loading passengers two meters from the curb, and he’d yell, "Why, what’s wrong? I’m just trying to make a living here." You look around and spot a traffic aide waving lazily at your fellow-motorists who are as stuck there as you. You curse whoever recruited those aides without instructing them about traffic rules. You curse transport officials for giving licenses to those uncouth drivers. You know that better-trained motorcycle cops should be there to untangle the mess. But they’re making a living elsewhere, escorting VIPs or funeral corteges. Happens everyday.

Thus, also, the piles of garbage on our sidewalks. The woman who dumps a plastic bag of kitchen refuse on the walkway will reason out that it’s all because the garbageman didn’t come to pick it up. No ideas about segregating and composting, no qualms about unsanitary disposal. For her, it’s all the fault of circumstance. Same with the street hawker who, when requested by patrolmen to wheel her stall out of the way of pedestrians, resentfully cries that they’re ganging up on her just because she’s poor and weak. Truly impossible it is to argue with an ignorant man. And we have them everywhere.

Thus, again, the destruction of our marine resources. Two adult whale sharks and two pups swam into Lingayen Gulf last week. Tourists, though initially frightened, rafted close enough to pet the giant mammals. Braver boys even rode the back of the smallest, 12-foot-long whale, which playfully dunked them. Then came six men in two boats, tossing dynamite into the water, unmindful of the danger to the tourists and clearly ignorant of the law against catching the endangered species. The swimmers yelled at them to stop. The fishermen retreated. At dusk, they motored back to the whales with their blasting sticks. Shore policemen apprehended them and – lo and behold – turned them over to the barangay captain. The local naturally let them off without so much as a warning that they’d go to jail next time around.

Thus, too, the denudation of our few remaining forests. Every week poachers with chain saws attack La Mesa Dam’s watershed in Quezon City-Bulacan for narra and other hardwood. Professional squatters from adjoining subdivisions bore holes on the concrete perimeter walls to put up piggeries and dog-breeding farms at the forest edges. Families of waterworks employees build poultry barns and pollute the city’s water supply. MWSS guards claim they’re too undermanned to patrol the 3,000-hectare forest. Concerned residents who complain about the entwined problems invariably get similar replies from police, environment and pollution officers: we can’t do anything about it; they’re just making a living, even if illegally.

Thus, of course, everyone is doing his own thing in the name of ignorance of the law. The disco operator not designating enough exits or installing enough extinguishers in case of fire. The eatery owner not bothering with flies all over his viands because city hall’s health inspector doesn’t come to inspect anyway. Government employees expecting bribes to perform their functions because everybody’s doing it anyway. Men unzipping and relieving themselves on lampposts while everybody passes by. Pedestrians crossing on expressways as if it were a game of skill. Election campaigners sticking posters anywhere they please just because Comelec didn’t designate posting areas. Rural poor migrating from the small provincial plots that they own to squat on somebody else’s city lot and becoming, well, urban poor. And nobody giving a damn because ignorance of the law has become the excuse.

If ignorance is bliss, shouldn’t there be lots of happy people around? There are. More and more corporate expatriates are relocating to Singapore not so much because of the corruption in high places. They’ve learned to live with that. A survey shows that what they can’t stand anymore are the vanishing parks and sidewalks due to hawkers and hobos, the traffic and garbage heaps on the streets, the air and water and noise pollution – in short, the deteriorating quality of life. Yet a separate survey shows that Filipinos, in all their ignorance and poverty and deprivation, are the happiest people in Asia. Why, their happiness index is so high they’d snort shabu and attack Malacanang at the drop of a mad politician’s hat.

Wasn’t it the English gentleman A.B. Alcott who said that "to be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant"?

* * *

You can e-mail comments to [email protected]