Open letter to Mayor Quisumbing
This is in response to your statement on the implementation of a city ordinance prohibiting the use of bonnets, etc. published in SunStar Cebu on March 5, 2018. In the said publication, you raised three concerns:
First, on the claim that “inconvenient ang ban sa bonnets because of health concerns: “We may consider passing an exemption para sa mga bata,” you said. This is a clear admission that you are aware of the health risks to the motorcycle riding people. So how about those persons with respiratory problems, like my wife and children who have asthma or those people who don’t have yet?
Second, on the claim that ban on bonnets is okay for us riding in private cars: “But whether we like or not, 99 percent of the crimes, most of these crimes are perpetrated by the people of motorcycle,” you said.
Third, that “kining mga criminal, when they commit the crime diha ra sila mosul-ob og mask.”
I agree with you on the second and third concerns. But then you never mentioned the other ways of identifying these criminals. The police tell us, for example, that these criminals ride on motorcycles without plate numbers or with tampered plate numbers. Why would you not use your influence in Congress for the passage of a law criminalizing the tampering, concealment or removal of a motor plate?
Or why not ask the Land Transportation Office to require all motorcycles to put near the headlight an identifying body number sticker? Maybe with this, your traffic enforcers and police would focus on resting and charging in court those violators rather than exerting time to apprehend mask-wearing riders.
Admittedly, these are all police matters. And I doubt if they cannot use their money and resources to at least identify who these hired killers are. Criminals will always find ways to outsmart the authorities and they will do all means to conceal their face and identity to the extent of violating your “no bonnet and face mask ordinance.”
Though I admire and supported your stance in fighting criminality, I pretty am sure that somebody will challenge in court the legality of your ordinance. I will support him/her as I believe that it is also the right of motorcycle-riding people to protect themselves from harmful dusts and particles on the roads.
--Erwin U. Galan of Paknaan, Mandaue City