It looks like the happy days of the proverbial wangwang, which has lately been becoming more and more a thing among public officials and other people who see themselves as big shots, have come to a surprising end once more, after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. issued an order prohibiting its use.
In Administrative Order No. 18, the President said “it has been observed that the unauthorized and indiscriminate use of sirens, blinkers, and other signaling or flashing devices has been rampant, causing traffic disruptions and unsafe road and traffic environment.”
It prohibits all government officials and personnel from using such devices, with the exception of official vehicles of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, National Bureau of Investigation and Philippine National Police, fire trucks, hospital ambulances, and other emergency vehicles.
The campaign against the wangwang, which was a trademark of the administration of the late former President Benigno Aquino III, was something that I honestly thought was a one-time deal that died along with PNoy. But now that PBBM has revived it, it gives hope that it can somehow make a comeback and maybe even last a bit longer.
PBBM’s reason for banning the wangwang is to prevent “traffic disruptions and unsafe road and traffic environment.” For PNoy, who announced the campaign in his inaugural speech, it was his way of going after a rampant symbol of government entitlement and abuse, which he followed up by actually living it, to the point of telling his convoy to stop at traffic lights when all other presidents in the past would just force their way through.
I don’t think PBBM will hassle his security detail with making them stop at traffic lights just to make a point of how serious he is against wangwang usage. However, if an actual crackdown against the use of the wangwang does follow AO 18, that would already be quite a sight to behold. I cannot wait to see one of those increasingly common wangwang convoys, being ironically apprehended by the same motorcycle cops that have been all too willing to blatantly turn on their wangwangs, weave aggressively, and arrogantly signal other motorists to give way for their bossing’s special convoy.
What makes the wangwang user extra annoying is that most of them are public servants who somehow ended up believing that their work is more important than the people they supposedly serve and think that using the wangwang to get ahead so they can do their “work” is acceptable. Using their important-looking blinkers and sirens, they bully their way through traffic, ignoring all the rules, fully expecting the rest of us to slow down and make way for them.
In the case of PNoy, he was the one leading by example. In this version of the wangwang crackdown, since we cannot expect PBBM to go that far, then we will need to have our cops show us a sample that they understood AO18 and that they are ready and willing to go after the wangwang users that they used to bow to. So, until a wangwang convoy is reported by our cops as being apprehended and penalized, the administrative order will just be words. Hopefully we see some results soon.
But at the very least, the news of the president’s order will hopefully reduce the number of wangwangers on our roads because that particular sense of entitlement and abuse of power is one of the things that make many of us lose faith in public officials and government itself. PBBM is on the right track on this one and if the implementation is good, it is these small but meaningful initiatives that can restore the public’s trust in the ability of their officials to serve and lead, rather than just seeing such people as entitled and corrupt.
The people who have gotten used to flaunting their wangwang powers should feel the pinch from this administrative order, but for most of us, this is a welcome development. Now everyone has to deal with the traffic and chaos of our roads in the same way. If there are no more exemptions, an added benefit for us is that they might end up working a bit harder to make traffic flow more efficiently. It should also help remind them of their place in society, that they are there to serve and not be served.
If this new attempt to create a more-or-less wangwangless society ends up successful, that could be considered a significant achievement for any administration, especially if it is somehow institutionalized and becomes the prevailing attitude among government officials and employees. For that to happen it will take more than an administrative order, but the full support of government, from the enforcers who will prevent it from happening to those that have benefitted too much from this false sense of entitlement.
Let us wish the PBBM administration the best of luck in their version of this attempt to make a better government that is focused on public service and servant leadership, rather than being the gang of corrupt bullies that a lot of us have been assuming they are, because of their actions, particularly the wangwangs they flash around as they supposedly do their jobs.*
