Daredevil fastfood motorcyclists

Watch out for those "daredevils" racing through traffic recklessly fast  so they can deliver ordered fastfoods at their callers’ doorsteps in a jiffy. Sandra Garcia, a public relations specialist, relates that her son recently became involved in a vehicular accident with a "daredevil" fastfood motorcycle rider who cut him from the right side (third lane) to make a sharp left turn. Her son was fortunate that the security staff and system of the place of the incident were efficient, and photos they took proved useful during the investigation.

While Sandra and her son were waiting outside the police precinct, a couple of fastfood riders zoomed past them. The next day, she went to a street fair and another fastfood rider drove past her with a bag of drinks in vending cups hanging on each of his wrists.

Sonia asked the law enforcer who was standing beside her why these riders are allowed to drive recklessly. His reply was, "Nagmamadali po kasi sila dahil nagde-deliver ng pagkain. Marami ngang naaksidente sa kanila sa pagmamadali." (They ride fast so they can deliver food to customers. Many accidents take place because these guys are in a hurry.")

Sonia says our lawmakers should look into this. "Fastfood companies commit to speedy delivery schedules as a selling point, thereby jeopardizing the lives and safety not only of their riders but also that of other motorists and pedestrians. I see these riders speeding like stuntmen along EDSA all the time. One time my sister almost got run over by a rider coming from the other direction while she was crossing Legaspi street in Makati, a one-way street.

"I was told that these riders are from outsourced agencies and the fastfood companies will not assume the financial responsibility in the event of an accident.

"My son used his lifetime savings to buy his three-month-old car. Now while he tries to get over the trauma of this recent incident, he has to shell out money to get his car fixed (not to mention that he will also be carless for a long while). Meanwhile these fastfood riders will continue to terrorize motorists and pedestrians street with their ‘daredevil’ ways."

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The fate of whistleblowers has not been a happy one — with the whistleblowers on anomalies being committed by government officials ending up paying and suffering from the trauma of libel suits and other forms of harassment. GABRIELA Women’s Partylist Representative Liza Largoza Maza believes that Congress  "may just have the ultimate solution to silencing the jueteng whistle blowers" — through the proposed anti-terrorism bill.

The anti-terrorism bill, according to Maza, has "a definition that is so broad and so superfluous, it could practically classify jueteng whistleblowers Archbishop Cruz and Boy Mayor as terrorists conspiring to destroy the government."

The bill defines terrorism as the "premeditated, threatened, actual use of violence, force or by any means of destruction perpetrated against person/s, property/ies, or the environment  with the intention of creating or sowing a state of danger, panic, fear or chaos to the general public, group of persons or particular person, or of coercing or intimidating the government to do or abstain from doing an act."

Maza said that with both Cruz and Mayor now being labeled by Malacañang and other allies of President Arroyo as "destabilizers" and part of a plot initiated by the opposition against the Arroyo government, the jueteng whistleblowers could easily be classified as terrorists under the proposed terror law."

Following the same logic under the proposed law "a barrage of surveillance and wire-tapping mechanisms could be easily and legally unleashed against the jueteng whistleblowers and they could be detained for as much as 15 days for questioning without charges."

Representative Maza says the bill "poses a grave threat to those who merely want to voice out their criticisms to government policies or reveal irregularities in the government. This draconian measure should be junked.

"Whistleblowers must be given protection as well as ample space to air their grievances as well as evidence. We must not gag and punish them. If the Arroyo government is serious in its campaign to put an end to the illegal numbers game and to do away with corruption in its ranks, then it must do all it can in order to encourage more witnesses and evidences to come out."

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The contents of the proposed anti-terrorism bill will be the topic of a forum this morning (June 2), 9-12 a.m., at the Malcolm Hall, College of Law, UP, Diliman, Quezon City.

The forum speakers invited to explore the various aspects of the bill, its impact on the lives  of the majority of the Filipino people and its implication to the current dismal state of the civil liberties and heightened political repression, will be Atty. Rachel  Pastores (Public Interest Law Center), Representative Liza Maza; Dean Carmen Abubakar (Institute of Islamic Studies); Sharon Rose Duremdez (National Council of Churches in the Philippines), and a representative from Isis International-Manila.

The forum is an initial activity of VOW for Civil Liberties (Voices of Women for Civil Liberties), a broad coalition of women promoting civil liberties in the face of the unprecedented acts and increasing repression against political activists, human rights advocates, legal practitioners and media people in the last few months in the country.

VOW for Civil Liberties was convened by the Ecumenical Women’s Forum, a coalition of Catholic and Protestant women’s organizations, GABRIELA and GABRIELA Women’s Party, and VOW for Civil Liberties. It was launched May 7, and the network now includes several women’s organizations, as well as concerned individuals such as Atty. Vicky Luanzon, Mother Mary John Mananzan, Susan Pineda, Dr. Sylvia dela Paz, and Representative Liza Maza.

For inquiries, call Emmie/Lana of GABRIELA at 374-3451, or Necta/Mayang of Isis International-Manila  at 928-1956.

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