Unauthorized!

We always assume that when government officials or law enforcers make declarations or take action, we think that they do so within the law or powers given to them by the state. We assume regularity and believe that these people know what they are doing, or at the very least know and understand the law. That is until the Department of Justice steps in and tells the Bureau of Immigration they have nothing to stand on as far as revoking the visa of an Australian nun who caught the ire of people in Malacañang. In his decision, DOJ Secretary Menardo Guevarra called the action of the BI equal to: “assertion of a power that does not exists in our laws.”

In effect, just because Malacañang tells you to kick out a foreigner, you still have to follow procedures and due process. You can’t interpret laws to suit your end goals. In effect, the DOJ decision has just given a number of people enough reason and ammo to go to court and sue Immigration officials. The question is how many innocent foreigners have had their visas cancelled or revoked by BI officials based on an “assertion of a power that does not exists in our laws”? Will Secretary Menardo Guevarra institute some form of punishment or penalty on those BI officials, considering even Judges are punished if not stripped of their position for ignorance of the law?

A few days later, the PNP embarked on an anti-tambay campaign going after men hanging around street corners, half dressed or drinking in public. Within a matter of days the PNP proudly announced that they collared more than 3,000 violators nationwide. Makes you wonder where they detained these violators considering all our jails are already at three to four times their maximum capacity! While the police was proud to please the President who ordered the anti-tambay campaign, they suddenly found themselves in a bind when members of the Senate, past and present, told media and the Philippine National Police that the law on vagrancy has long been decriminalized.

This of course was a result of a time when the police would summarily “sweep” a target area to conduct a “zona” or zone by zone herding of men and checking them for illegal weapons or outstanding warrants in spite of the fact that their “zona” is not provided for by law, a court order, or justifiable circumstance such as a hot pursuit. Vagrancy was also decriminalized because it became the all purpose law for the national and local governments and the police to round up the homeless and ship them somewhere, whenever the country hosts some international event like APEC summits or Miss Universe or a Papal visit!

The quick thinking Oscar Albayalde immediately clarified that the anti-tambay campaign was a campaign against drinking in public, indecent exposure, and the likes.

While I don’t really support the Philippines becoming a society quick to go to court and file law suits, I can’t help wishing that sometime in the future we would actually hear or read about a citizen or a group that would sue government officials for their ignorance of the law, erroneous presumptions as well as abuse of authority. Taking such people to court has its merits because this is one sure way to teach them to be careful and legally conscious about violating other people’s rights especially because you want to suck up to your boss, some politician or in these cases, the President.

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Most people who talked about the anti-tambay campaign focused mainly on “human rights” or actual violations of the law. Sadly no one ever pointed out that most Filipinos make tambay or hang out sa kanto/ or street corners because we have a serious if not severe lack of public parks and recreation areas particularly in Metro Manila. Most of what’s left are the big parks like Quezon Memorial Park, the Luneta Park or the vast memorial parks and cemeteries.

All the “mini parks” are gone; many converted to concrete buildings, government offices etc. I remember the “Bernardo Park” across Nepa Q Mart from my childhood. I faintly remember a park and children’s playground across the Manila Zoo. But nowadays not all congressional districts or barangays have mini parks. We in Barrio Kapitolyo, Pasig take pride in a mini park that’s been built and maintained by the women and senior citizens of Barrio Kapitolyo. I know that Pasig City has an environmentally oriented and designed park as well. In a country that is so hot and humid I also wonder why we don’t have more public pools and mandatory swimming lessons so we can minimize deaths by drowning in a country with 7,000 islands!

Unless we make it a point to go green in every barangay and somehow build mini parks or create park like environments, many of us will carry on making tambay sa kanto because of the heat, dust and pollution. Spend more money on mini parks instead of electronics, vehicles etc.

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In line with proper spending, we recently guested Bill Luz of the Philippine Competitive Commission and he suggested a topic for another episode where we can talk about rationalizing the procurement process and mindset of government both national and local. In his view, Bill Luz believes that governments can make better use of funds by simply leasing vehicles or machinery so that government is not tied down with maintenance expenses, registration and insurance! They also don’t get stuck with junk when the vehicles eventually become junk or unserviceable.

There are clearly many areas where the government can simply get out of buying things such as automation particularly apps and programs. I’m sure it will be a very interesting program so keep tabs or join us as we live stream on Facebook by going to Onenewsph and liking us. On Cignal you can catch AGENDA on Channel 8 or 250 at 8 a.m. Monday to Friday.  God bless you.

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