Wang-wang

If you’ve been in Metro Manila’s main thoroughfares and even in our nooks and crannies often enough, it’s very likely that you’ve experienced having your trip – whether you’re driving or using public transportation – shamelessly and abruptly interrupted and cut by a convoy of vehicles with police escorts. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve experienced this.

These wang-wang riddled convoys symbolize a huge part of what’s wrong in this nation of 115 million, then and now – stark inequality, audacious sense of entitlement among the powerful few and the lack of care or concern for fellow Filipinos.

You especially feel the pain when this happens along EDSA because the country’s busiest highway is where you really get stuck during rush hour.

The meme that has been going around captures it well: “Kung gusto mong makasama ang mahal mo sa buhay ng matagal, idaan mo sa EDSA.”

Actually, EDSA is a microcosm of what’s happening everywhere else in the country.

Rules are bent and lines are blurred for a powerful few while ordinary citizens are stuck in a system that is wreaking with inefficiencies.

As the English historian, politician and writer John Edward Dalberg-Acton famously said, “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The Philippines is a testament to this.

What we have is a society that is deeply divided between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the underprivileged.

And the gap is stark and telling.

And so I very much welcome President Marcos’ wang-wang ban. Thank you, Mr. President!

Credit, indeed, goes to Marcos for reviving a policy last seen during the time of president Noynoy Aquino.

“All government officials and personnel are prohibited from utilizing sirens, blinkers and other similar gadgets that produce exceptionally loud or startling sound, including dome lights, blinkers, or other similar signaling or flashing devices,” according to Marcos’ Administrative Order No. 18, which Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin signed on March 25.

The order also restricted the use of protocol license plates, with judges losing the privilege.

The move is part of efforts to ensure road safety and better manage the worsening traffic in Metro