By Mortz C. Ortigoza
Media colleagues in Dagupan City who covered the training of pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao in nearby Baguio City told me their stalking experiences before he goes to jog and train.
With national and local media men shoving and jostling to take a peek in a place outside the entrance of the Cooyeesan Hotel on whom among them see first the convoy that includes a black SUV and a gold van of the Filipino superman that would emerge from the hotel’s car park.
As they scamper to their vehicles to give chase to the convoy’s whose speed could be mistaken to ferry VIPs like US Ambassador Harry Thomas (who looks like Light Heavyweight boxer James “Fat Man”Toney)” being rushed to Baguio General Hospital because of a vowel disorder .
What intrigue my friend were the SUV and the van that follow the butts of Manny and his company as they jog the hills and valleys of the cloud kissed Pines City.
‘So what intrigue you is the convoy could not overtake the speed of Manny and his company as they hit the road?,” I posed to this pal who accidentally became a media man after he ran an errand to buy Datu Puti Vinegar and return home as newly minted member of the Fourth Estate in my city dubbed as the Bangus (Milkfish) Capital of the World.
“No my man, what intrigue me those dudes were being followed by an SUV with a plate number 8, what I know is a car plate in the Philippines is marked by three words and three numbers? “He posed to me wide-eyed.
“My man, you’re a nincompoop! Plate no. 8 is used by members of the House of Thieves, er, Representatives or congressmen in our country. We call it as protocol plate. It is issued for people to recognize important government functionaries. According to a bigwig of the land transportation office, these plates are so sacred that it is second only to Jesus Christ. President of the Philippines uses No. 1, Senators use No. 7, and Judges of the Regional Trial Court use No.16. Some of these luminaries abuse these by whimsically cutting a two way lanes, and sometime overran anti-Pacquiao critics like you,’ I lectured over mugs of San Miguel draft beer at Shakey’s CSI Warehouse in Dagupan – the favourite hang-out of prolific boxing scribe Hermie Rivera.
My now bewildered but enlightened pal still wondered why Pacquiao used it to jog and not uses it to attend his duty as congressman at the August Chamber in Manila.
He wondered why the almost 283-strong members of the House used their plate numbered 8 SUVs to vote recently for the Article of Impeachment of an allegedly corrupt and incompetent Ombudsperson (government chief prosecutor) who was identified with the likewise alleged corrupt former president Gloria Arroyo, while Manny used his plate numbered 8 SUV to relax at some coffee houses at either SM Mall or Camp John Hay while Congress (a four-hour drive only to his place in Baguio) was in session up to the wee hours during that time?
He poses to me: “Would the Filipino superman still uses the same plate numbered big car to drink coffee, while his colleague vote in favour or against anytime from now to a Reproductive Health (RH) Bill that could solve or aggravate the gnawing hardships our people suffer to our population that compete with rabbits in bearing their offspring?
“But Manny was against condom and other contraceptives. He even quoted the Lord’s edict in the Bible to go and multiply?” I asked him.
“Would it be commonsensical and popular for the part of the pro-RH bill that Manny rides in his number 8 SUV and just drink coffee till Kingdom Come at some coffee houses there instead of casting his “No” vote in congress,” he retorted to my question with a query.
I told him that I could forgive Manny for that! But no Twitter for him, please!
(You can read my selected intriguing but thought-provoking columns at Mortz Ortigoza. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)
