Laugh till you die

If it were not for officials like Metro Manila Development Authority Bayani Fernando and a few others, one could say law enforcement in this country is the biggest joke ever foisted on our terribly joke-addicted people. Filipinos excel in laughing from the wrong side of their mouth and may have no real competition worldwide in this costly sport. On the highways, in narrow, one-way sidestreets, in their homes, in commercial malls, tourist resorts, religious establishments and government offices, Filipinos laugh too much, much too easily and many times they die laughing in so many stupid deaths.

Just a little seriousness, just a bit more lawfulness and concern for each other could have prevented so many tragic road accidents here. Many needless fatalities could have been avoided if public sanitation and disease management had been infused more by the law and the law enforcers had been more conscientious in discharging their formal responsibilities.

As it is, so much lawlessness prevails and its unavoidable social cost must be reckoned as staggering. A nation that only intermittently observes its rules increasingly becomes unruly. Soon enough, it is reduced to being a nation only in name.

A German professor driving the North Diversion Road with me was once moved to remark, "Do Filipinos know that yours is a left-hand drive country? Why do so many drivers overtake on the right?" Before I could think of a reply that would not depreciate my people all that much, he shuddered as three vehicles – two buses and a car, all driven by reincarnations of Steve McQueen – dedicatedly chased each other on the shoulder. The rest of our trip to Subic, my foreign guest was mercifully quiet. Several times I wondered whether it was jet lag that induced him to close his eyes for long stretches of time, or whether he had been in his country’s diplomatic service before he took up with academe.

The few freaks who compulsively still obey rules of the road, dispose of garbage in accordance with health ordinances, respect property rights and generally treat the law as if it were a serious matter are often scorned, ridiculed and laughed at. People who stop and remain stopped before a red light are unceremoniously honked at from behind; angry drivers sarcastically scream that you are not in LA or New York City and give you the finger sign before running the red light. On the other hand, neighbors resent being reminded where their garbage properly belongs; anyone who speaks of sanitation and the law is immediately ostracized by these free-wheeling spirits. A characteristic stigma – a mound of stinking garbage deliberately placed before one’s door or thrown into one’s yard – may soon attend the unfortunate offender, the one who called attention to what the law enjoins regarding garbage disposal.

No law, decree or ordinance appears to be regularly observed by Filipinos now. They mostly ignore what the law and its other instruments mandate. For their part, the authorities – political, judicial, military, police, health and others – appear to have no compelling sense of regular law enforcement. Consequently, every rule in this republic becomes a matter of personal whimsy, observed or ignored as the spirit casually moves a person, whether s/he be an ordinary citizen, an influential and powerful personality or – most critical of all – a designated law enforcer.

The rules are still there, but their enforcement has largely gone. Whether you comply with the law or choose to ignore or break it, there is little concern that predictable and appropriate consequences will follow your action. As a matter of fact, far too often it is the lawbreaker that gains an advantage by acting contrary to law. S/he gets ahead in traffic, spends less money and saves much time dumping his garbage wherever s/he pleases, gains title to public or private land by squatting on whichever property suits him/her and amasses fabulous wealth by cavalierly breaking the law on plunder and other corrupt practices in government service.

On the other hand, one often gets penalized precisely for observing the law. The conscientious taxpayer, the legitimate entrepreneur, the honest public servant are all at risk and often get into undeserved trouble. In this situation, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that one must be stupid to persist so long in lawfulness.

The crisis of lawlessness here has reached an acute stage. However unpalatable the idea may be to moist-eyed romantics and bleeding-heart liberals, this crisis can be mastered in the short term only by resorting to rather drastic means. Those who preach otherwise are not going to get anywhere. Soft measures like interminable dialogues with recedevist parties, perpetual concientization of soulless politicians and sophisticated regime restructuring through charter change, constitutional amendments and statutory reinvention have all been tried in the Philippines. All have failed. Naivete, fecklessness and procrastination cannot be the forceful trinity enabling Filipinos to escape the accursed black hole of lawlessness.

The law and its uncompromising enforcement is a sine qua non for this nation’s reinvention as a human society. Willful law enforcers are the primary agents of this reinvention and society’s reformatting is not possible without them.

People like Bayani Fernando, Jesus Robredo (Naga City’s skillful mayor) and Alfredo Lim (the feisty, former mayor of Manila) are exceptional Filipinos able to make unpopular but demonstrably community-benefiting decisions. These no-nonsense authorities are serious law enforcers and consequently terrify those who are selfish, fun-loving, whimsical and anarchic. Unless other Filipinos – one must say, the better but much less numerous Filipinos – learn to give such officials greater and more active support in their campaigns to uphold the law and make it apply to all, what little remains of lawfulness in this country could dissipate so much faster.

Almost a fourth of all Filipinos now already believe that martial law may be needed to effectively deal with this country’s crises. They could dramatically increase in number and demand summary actions if the current lawlessness continued much longer.

Or, giving up on decency and lawfulness, the number of such Filipinos could also decrease tremendously. In this alternative scenario, enough decent people finally give up on their heroic but apparently futile struggle against lawlessness; perhaps with great sadness, they too join the great majority of Filipinos in laughing away their country’s most urgent crises.