MikeLigalig.com

Editorial

Feeling entitled

Philippine Daily Inquirer
Friday, December 20th, 2013

Was it an impossible inconvenience for the mayor of Makati to order his driver, aides, guards and other members of his four-vehicle convoy to go the extra 150 meters to reach the street through which they could make their exit from Dasmariñas Village according to its rules? What an excellent example the young man would have made, not least to his driver, aides, guards and other members of his convoy, if he did. What a lesson in leadership he would have imparted to them, and even to the village guards who would not let him through.
 
But Mayor Junjun Binay, in insisting on exiting through the gate on Banyan and McKinley Roads way past the allowable time on the night of Nov. 30, clearly illustrated the malaise that continues to afflict many, whether pooh-bah or petty bureaucrat, in these parts: a sense of entitlement. This malaise drives one to expect—indeed demand—privileging at every turn, whether in traffic or a queue, or, yes, at a street corner specified by a set of rules as impassable at a certain time of the night. It moves one to patronize, ridicule, threaten, or intimidate those on the low end of the pecking order. At the extreme, this malaise is known to compel one to bend the law or ignore it altogether, to help oneself to public funds, even to literally get away with murder.

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That the president of Right Eight Security, the employer of the village guards, later apologized to the mayor—“profusely,” per Makati City Hall spokesperson Joey Salgado—is puzzling, given that the guards were merely following the village policy of prohibiting the exit of vehicles through the gate on Banyan and McKinley after 10 p.m. Or maybe not entirely puzzling in view of the peculiar dynamics that rules fiefdoms such as Makati, where it would be folly for courtiers to be in dutch with the dynasty that has long ruled it.

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The sad fact is that people in power continue to find the need to flex muscle at the slightest opportunity, and take umbrage when crossed, and cry malice, cry persecution, when found out and exposed. An overweening sense of entitlement prompted Mayor Binay to behave the way he did—that is, pull rank over the low men on the totem and force them to violate rules, through the instruments of the state no less—and Senator Binay to countenance it. In fact the halfway attentive observer will consider it a no-brainer: Given that there was no life-and-death situation involved, the siblings, being privileged people from whom much is expected, should have paused to think of how the muscle-flexing incident could possibly embarrass their father, Vice President Jojo Binay. But it turns out that the former human rights lawyer thinks nothing of it, and thinks his son deserved passage even if it’s against the rules.
 
“Privilege, you see,” wrote Chinua Achebe, “is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.”


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