Jaywalking

There can be no exacerbating experience than getting caught flatfooted for violating the anti-jaywalking ordinance. Aside from the belittlement you feel, you get pissed at the many faces of bystanders and pedestrians whose eyes are glued on you with mockery. You look like a dumb-ass and you feel as if your total well-being is melting down because of embarrassment.

My experience was extremely exasperating because aside from the shame I raked upon myself, I was badly inconvenienced for the fact that I was having marathon with time then trying to buy all the things that I was bringing home for a fiesta vacation. It was on that day when I had the time to go for a shopping spree because I was scheduled to leave for Leyte via Lite Shipping at 11:00 am the next day. So when the traffic enforcer honked his whistle on me, my brow knitted in disgust and anger and my blood started to boil hot. Instead of getting terrified, I immediately approached him and started to let loose a barrage of verbal fireworks giving him little time to get in.

After our altercation which lasted for almost forty minutes, the traffic enforcer upon my request brought me together with the other two youngsters who were caught before me to where his chief and other traffic officers where situated. Before i requested to speak with their chief, I did challenge his knowledge about the ordinance. I was asking him to tell me the very detail of that law he was tasked to implement- the city councilor who authored it, the date of its effectivity, and the specific provisions embodied in it as well as its parameters. Surprisingly, all he could say was, “Mao ni and ordinansa and wala jud koy mahimo ana kay gi-violate man mu. Mobayad jud ka ug 50 pesos. Kun di mobayad ug 50 pesos, mo-attend jud ka sa orientation for four hours.”

I almost strained his patience because he was telling me that if I wont stop, he might be forced to lay a big hand on me. I just replied, “I’m not afraid of that because there’s human rights. You will surely battle with your bread and butter if you harm me.”

Now here is the issue: If our law enforcers, especially those who manage the flow of traffic, do not have sufficient knowledge about the law they are implementing, how can they effectively effectuate it? How can the expected result be achieved. Isn’t it a waste of time and even money assigning them to enforce that ordinance but then if they are questioned they cannot give any valid answers? If this would always be the case then these traffic regulators are putting their credibility at risk.

When I got the opportunity to speak with their chief, I vulgarly iterated that their traffic regulators be re-educated about the ordinance because it seemed that they did not know what they were doing. They were only good at catching for violators but when they are provoked, they cannot defend themselves anymore and all they could say is this is the law and you have to follow. That’s it!

Exactly, we are bound to follow the letters of the law. This is a part of our duties and responsibilities as Filipino citizens. And an ordinance to be implemented well, those who are tasked to do so should have an intensive knowledge about its provisions and parameters. Otherwise, it will simply become a mere calligraphy scribbled in a white sheet of paper that will lost its luster in time.