Brilliant

If indeed there was a terrorist out there intent on bombing the festivities at the Edsa People Power Monument, he was effectively thwarted by the decision to close down the vital avenue to traffic. The poor suicide bomber must have been completely baffled by the standstill situation in all the roads of the metropolis.

What a brilliant move this was!

Once more, the gallant leaders of the nation conquered terrorism without firing a shot. That lone terrorist, surprised by the gridlock, must have been stranded in far out Pasay City – too far to cause any disruption on the happy day we celebrated the 29th anniversary of a glorious revolution.

There is even more reason to cheer this achievement. Millions of ordinary citizens, sitting it out passively in the clogged streets, contributed to the glorious triumph against terrorism. Without knowing it, they formed the blocking forces that kept dangerous elements away from our President.

What better way to celebrate the 1986 Edsa Revolution!

Twenty-nine years ago, patriotic citizens sat on the streets, threw flowers at loyalist troops and locked arms to bring down a dictatorship. That was an event that inspired the world.

Last Wednesday, once more, our patriotic citizens sat in their cars, in buses and in taxicabs, stopping terrorism in its tracks – although they might not have been conscious of that heroic role. Through the whole day, the city became a large parking lot. Nothing moved. No malevolent character could execute a plot, any plot.

The terrorist must have scampered back to the jungle in confusion. Without the toxic fumes, the noise, the bustle, the chaos, he could better contemplate a way to establish the caliphate.

This should have been the line Sonny Coloma might have spewed in the face of millions of irate citizens banging the heavens and stomping all over Facebook, denouncing the incompetence, the stupidity and the arrogance responsible for that urban calamity. Instead, we were treated to the same drab bureaucratic excuses and the usual finger-pointing.

Last Thursday, the day after the chaos, we finally got MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino on the other end of the phone line during our Karabola radio program. We asked him: What happened?!?

Tolentino started beating around the bush, in part blaming media for not disseminating enough information about the “traffic management plan.” As we pressed some more, he admitted that it was the police that recommended Edsa be closed to traffic for a day.

Since traffic was under the MMDA’s jurisdiction, we asked Tolentino who actually ordered the closure. He began mumbling about some “security considerations.” He did not answer our question directly.

Precisely because they were “security considerations,” then they could not be discussed. After saying that, Tolentino begged off from the interview, hinting he had other things to do.

Later in the day, Malacañang issued a routine apology to those affected by the traffic jam (which has to be everybody in the metro area). The Palace seemed to be taking the MMDA to task for not properly informing our citizens about “alternate routes.”

What “alternate route”? Every avenue, every boulevard, every sidestreet and every alley was clogged last Wednesday.

Traffic was so bad Cardinal Tagle had to be rescued by presidential guards so that the mass at the Edsa Shrine could push through. Traffic was so bad, no one appeared at the People Power Monument for the usual rites – which were brief and nonsensical.

The least government could do was to be honest with our people. Tell us, what “security considerations” were there?

If a suicide bomber was on the loose, maybe the people should know so we can exercise vigilance. It there was a plot of some magnitude, shouldn’t the police and the army be put on red alert status?

Surprisingly, no alert status was raised. The hundreds of riot policemen were demobilized after a few small protest actions in the afternoon of Wednesday.

This could only suggest that the “overkill” of shutting down Edsa was motivated solely to prevent protesters from disturbing the 15 or so officials at the ceremonies. There protesters, probably numbering in a couple of hundreds, had nothing more sinister up their sleeves than heckle the President of the Republic in the only time in many months he was actually out in the streets.

The “overkill,” as we know, shut down the entire metropolis. It stole the productive time of millions, caused so much waste of fuel, contributed much more to global warming. If there were any way to measure the aggravation of citizens, this would have caused a flood. If any one needed to be rushed to hospital and failed to make it because of the standstill in all the roads, the blame must be pinned on whoever brought up this brilliant idea of closing down Edsa.

If it be established this chaos was consciously inflicted on the metropolis in order to save one face from the hecklers or soothe someone’s extreme paranoia, then we have a serious political issue here. What greater arrogance of power could there be than to close down the city to save just one person from possible heckling or assuage his paranoia?

On second thought, if there was indeed a terrorist lurking out there and he were smart enough, the man could have made his way to the Edsa Monument by taking the dilapidated MRT. He could have thrown a bomb, or thrown himself, at least at the phalanx of policemen protecting the President.

The plan of shutting down all traffic flow, on serious reflection, was not so brilliant after all.