Exempted

I was driving in very heavy traffic along EDSA this morning on my way to work when two motorcycle cops with blaring sirens suddenly signalled me to stop. I did, and then a big black SUV with another white back-up vehicle wheezed past my car.

Only then did I see the bold stickers on the side of the SUV simply saying BAYANI (with a Philippine flag) and realized that it was my favorite MMDA Chair BF, maybe also on his way to work. These guys have the privilege to go ahead of everybody else, no matter how heavy the traffic is.

I guess these things have become quite usual in this country and if you see BF caught in traffic like everybody else, that will merit inclusion in Ripley's collection.

As I moved forward after making way for a privileged "public servant", I found myself behind a Pascual Liner bus with plate number NYB-312. The first thing I noticed was the smell, although my car's air conditioning was on. The smell of heavy smoke, or smog maybe, was noticeable inside my car, coming from thick black smoke from the bus' tailpipe.

This is probably another exemption from the Clean Air Act, courtesy of some nice guys from the DENR, from MMDA, from the PNP or from the local government units which have jurisdiction over the EDSA stretch. We do not need to "discover" or "unearth" hard evidence to conclude that a bus is belching thick black smoke. We only need to see.

Even the guys wearing pink T-shirts in the EDSA center islands do not give a hoot, in spite of the message on their shirts - BAYANI AKO NG LANSANGAN. Of course, this is another exemption from election laws flaunted by the guy who just wheezed by along with his escorts.

Indeed, this country is a country of exemptions! The rules are only for those who are not "exempted"!