Are armored vans exempted from traffic rules?

It’s always a great day for Press Freedom when two personalities that went to court for libel charges end up dropping the cases for the sake of peace and harmony. I’m referring to the libel case that Cebu Governor Gwen F. Garcia filed against my neighbor Leo Lastimosa in what was once a bitter controversy. Kudos to Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Geraldine Econg under whose sala this case was tried. She was also instrumental in solving the libel case filed against me by the Lofgren couple for the articles we exposed against them a couple of years ago.

Perhaps that most important lesson to learn from this case was that Gov. Garcia, two years ago, invited the media and virtually anyone who wanted to listen and gave a breakdown of the expenses of the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) right after the construction was over. This was transparency unheard of in local governance and perhaps it should be a template for future infrastructure projects that may experience a similar controversy.

I was with a group of people who scrutinized that power point presentation and ended up concluding that the CICC project was above board. Unfortunately, the people who didn’t attend that presscon continued to insist on their own conclusions. But in the end, they could never prove any irregularities in that project. As the old saying goes, “All’s well that end’s well!”

* * *

A few months ago, the Cebu City Traffic Operations and Management (CITOM) asked Mr. Danny Rodis (former CITOM Chief) President of the Armored Cars Providers Association for a meeting on the issue that we wrote earlier that armored cars owned by these Security Agencies have drivers that apparently and arrogantly believe that they are above the law as they park illegally and totally disregard traffic rules. Danny Rodis promised that he would pass on the information to his members.

Well apparently, Mr. Rodis failed to disseminate this information because yesterday at 11:45am, I was on the left-lane making a left-turn towards Juana Osmeña St. We had a go-signal when a Safeguard Armored vehicle with plate number ZHE-542 and a number 567 with a red number for the body 1688 made a right turn towards Escario St. then suddenly turned left totally blocking the traffic and then turned right against traffic so he could back out into the Land Bank branch in Escario St. Let me tell you that many motorists were infuriated with that driver, but then what can we do when this armored vehicle has armed guards surrounding the vehicle?

Call it luck that a CITOM enforcer was around. I asked him to apprehend that driver, but the enforcer was hesitant because he already tried in the past. But anyway, I asked him again and true enough, the driver refused to even open his vehicle while the armed guards merely looked at the hapless CITOM enforcer. With a bevy of traffic violations, I’m lost with what to do with these drivers who totally disregard our traffic rules and worse, refuse to submit to traffic authorities.

I don’t know what Mr. Rodis would do, but I suggest that if CITOM or the Land Transportation Office (LTO) doesn’t get a listing of the drivers in their association, then they should not be allowed on the streets of Cebu City. It’s about time that we deal with this issue once and for all because we live in a society where no man is above the law, whether you’re a congressman, a city councilor, a policeman or mayor, everyone is subject to our laws and that includes those arrogant drivers inside those armored cars. Now unless we take drastic measures, I’m sure that this is not the last time an Armored vehicle would violate our traffic rules.

* * *

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is off to four countries Asia for her first ever visit as the Obama Administration State Secretary. She first went to Japan; today she’s in Indonesia, then she goes to South Korea and then to China. The Philippines is not on her visit list, although when her plane flies from Tokyo, it would certainly fly through Philippine air space. I won’t call this a public snub of the Arroyo Administration (as some pundits would love to put it) because Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) already saw her when she went to the United States a few weeks ago.

But the Clinton visit to our neighboring countries ought to remind us of the status of the Philippines vis-à-vis our relations with the United States, despite our being a colony of the Americans decades ago. As Asia’s first democracy, we should be given equal status with our Asian neighbors who are not even a democracy. But then again, American interests are business not democracy and China is our best example of this policy.