Bad law beats correct idea

The subject of this article today has become passé. But, I insist on writing this topic for two seemingly disjointed directions.

Here’s the first direction. This is about the Executive Order issued by Governor Gwendolyn Garcia allowing motorcycle users to carry passengers. It was apparently signed at the beginning of the past week but became short-lived because it was reportedly retracted before the week ended. Although, I’ve yet to read the document invalidating the earlier executive order let me register two observations. First, I’m curious how funnily it’s worded. The change of the governor’s otherwise strong will should be very well documented. A sudden change of heart, if not explained well, isn’t a good attribute to the kind of great leader she is. Second, it’s possible Garcia hasn’t yet penned the latter order. She might have just verbally announced it. In that case, her fiat allowing motorcycle passengers still exists.

Even assuming the issue is passé, the idea continues to be fundamentally profound. Let’s consider this anecdote. There’s a modest family of four. The father is a skilled carpenter while the mother is a government job-order employee. Their children are college students. Since the beginning of the lockdown, they have joined hands in fabricating and selling chairs. All these quarantine days, they’ve been doing things together like carpentry, cooking and eating meals, and watching news. The parents sleep together in one room because they have an active sex life and the children in another room. No “distancing” among themselves. They frequently wash hands as the only health protocol they observe. Still, none among them were infected by COVID-19.

With the General Community Quarantine, the husband, with mask on, began reporting to work on his motorcycle. In the first few days of the GCQ, the wife, also with mask on, had to walk four kilometers to the town hall. She couldn’t ride on their motorcycle, their only means of transportation, because the government disallowed it. The reason for the prohibition? Possible COVID-19 infection!

Garcia saw this folly. The back riding ban, in her mind, is a terribly bad policy. I believe she viewed it as a product of flawed, idiotic, and warped thinking. A government functionary working high in the DILG, with a canine devotion to the president, claimed it’s based on science. Oh my goodness, what BS. What science? Is talking like a lap dog scientific? To the governor, it’s therefore, unreasonable to disallow the wife from riding on the motorcycle driven by her own husband. They cannot transmit the virus to each other riding the bike together. Why, they even make love now and then and when they do they naturally kiss as part of the act! The wrong has to be corrected. And rightly so.

 Yet, Garcia supposedly made an uncharacteristic U-turn. She announced last Friday her reason for recalling her executive order was that she’s just following government-issued guidelines, underlining her hidden fear of the president. Otherwise, her EO might be treated as inimical to the law. After all, the night before, President Rodrigo Duterte asserted he couldn’t exempt Cebu Province from the back-riding ban. Baloney. If only Duterte gave it serious thinking, he would have realized he committed a lapse in his judgment. He needed not exempt Cebu. All that he should have done was to modify the policy himself to conform to the logical reasoning of Garcia. But that’s most dramatically embarrassing.

Here’s the second direction of this article. If the fear of those opposed to the new anti-terror bill is valid, this article can probably place me in dire straits. This criticism may be viewed as inciting people to violate our laws warranting sanctions. That is the chilling effect of this harsh bill that I don’t want to speak further.