EDITORIAL - Tyrants in the streets

The incident involving two motorcyclists who violated the helmet requirement getting rammed by a Citom-contracted tow truck and then mauled by Citom deputized agents shows the danger of giving people with brains the size of a mongo bean a little authority and power.

Such people easily get drunk from the authority and power they never had in their lives and become abusive and arrogant. And their mongo-sized brains cannot tell the difference between a simple traffic violation and direct physical assault and reckless endangerment.

But we cannot expect their victims, poor as they are, to be able to summon the nerve to sue, and if they did, to sue successfully. That is because the Citom has a backer in Mayor Tomas Osmeña, one of the most arrogant and authoritarian leaders Cebu City had.

Osmeña, whether to spite people or show who is boss, has already given his assurance to Citom and its deputized agents that he will back them up, no matter what. After all, birds of the same feather flock together.

Here is a challenge to Citom and its deputized agents: Prove that your arrogance and abuse are not directed only at the little people by trying to apprehend all those vehicles that are parked illegally at the back of the Cebu Doctors Hospital.

And why doesn't the Citom apprehend the driver of one of its deputized tow trucks who has this nasty habit of taking an afternoon nap while illegally parking his tow truck at Fuente Osmeña just in front of that BDO branch there, which is a no-parking area clearly marked so.

Maybe it would be worthwhile too to challenge human rights and lawyers groups to study the possibility of bringing a case against these abusive and arrogant Citom personnel who have no qualms inflicting unwarranted physical injuries against traffic violators.

For all the bitching about parking fees at the Capitol, here at last is a case worthy of spending precious time fighting for. It is time an intelligent people like Cebuanos get freed of the burdensome yoke of official excesses and abuse from pipsqueaks and megalomaniacs.