WangWang

A child asked me why vehicle sirens are called wangwang and I said it is because the blare sound of sirens really sound like the word wangwangwangwang. I have traveled through the early evening rush hour of the streets of Jakarta in the convoy of then Indonesian President Gus Dur and our car had blinkers and sirens and it was really some experience like we were some immortals looking at the rest of the mortal motorists giving way for us to pass. We were on our way to a summer residence of the Indonesian President and what normally was a two hour trip in a rush hour traffic took us only 30 minutes or so. In the case of P-Noy, for sure, he is making a political statement to set an example and to convey a message to private blinkers and sirens owners that their road bullying days are over. But, all this gesture of P-Noy is a security nightmare. And we prefer a president alive than dead. It is a nightmare for many of us who were born earlier to feel the shock upon hearing of the assasination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas one day in November in 1962. Or in recent memory, it is a nightmare for those of us who saw on television how Benazir Bhutto was killed by a suicide bomber amidst very tight security.

We hear that the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is ensuring that the main roads, particulary from Quezon Avenue to Malacanang, will have a flowing traffic for motorists. To the extent that our government is looking at road traffic is a good thing. When I returned to Davao City after seven years in Manila, a friend of mine commented that I have returned to a slow life and slow pace. My rejoinder was to say that Metro Manila was slower because the road traffic will not guarantee that I will reach my destination with precise timing & predictability. Oftentimes, one overestimates travel time and finds oneself late all the time. Anyway, one of my guiding principles in life now( under the auspices of the Slowfood convivium) is that I am over the folly of a fast life and on to enjoy the pleasures of a slow life. I am convinced that there is some kind of violence in a fast life.

A favorite example that I have adopted for underdevelopment in the asphalt jungle of Metro Manila is that workers have to wake up at the crack of dawn to travel on the road to have a lead time and be in the workplace at 8:00 a.m. As we say in our social conflict theory, only the oppressed can do something about their condition. So, anyone, including P-Noy, who will feel oppressed under the deteriorating traffic condition of Manila will hopefully do something to change the situation.

According to Presidential Decree 96 issued by Ferdinand Marcos in 1973, during the martial law years, only motor vehicles designated for the use of the Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines, National Bureau of Investigation, Land Transportation Office, Bureau of Fire Protection, and hospital ambulances can be fitted with sirens, bells, horns or similar gadgets. And the only public official allowed by law to use blinkers and sirens is the President. The story, they say, is that then President Marcos wanted the perk only for himself as he was the only one in power.

Anyway, ultimately, if our streets are not safe for a President, then they are not safe, at all, for anyone. But, then again, if I may digress, no one should be afraid of dying.