Sticky Situation

Take a look at this interesting excerpt from a commentary, criticizing village's home owner's association stickers as he remember a story about President Cory:


And if you think that is bad, many regular readers of this column may remember the story about the late Cory Aquino that I wrote about a year or so ago. One of our readers shared this story about the former president when she tried dropping something off at his house in Corinthian Gardens, when she, too, had a taste of the village people.

The house she intended to visit was in full view of the guard house, yet the guard, who in fairness may have just been doing his job, made her wait on the side of the road while he tried unsuccessfully to call the resident to confirm that he was indeed expecting a package from the former President of the Republic of the very soil he was standing on. This would normally not be too bad, but let’s face it, it is highly unrealistic to expect the owner of the house (a person prominent enough to have Cory Aquino visiting his home) answer the phone and talk to this village guard.

So there they sat.

Eventually, Cory Aquino powers down her window and said quite politely, “Hijo, kilala mo ba ako?” (Son, do you know who I am?) The guard stood up straight and saluted her and said with a big smile, “Oo po, ma’am President!” (Yes, ma’am President) Yet he still made them wait. And wait. And wait. Eventually, sick of waiting, she just turned around and left.

Rules may be rules, but it becomes redundant if it ends up painting people into a corner. You may say that it shouldn’t matter who the person is and that being a celebrity or Cory Aquino doesn’t entitle you to preferential treatment, and everyone should follow the same rules. And I agree. So why doesn’t the guard call up each resident when the PLDT messenger comes through. Or the Meralco guy? Or the mailman?

Which brings me back to my point. Overpriced village stickers are not for security or identification purposes. They are revenue raising scams. Period. Let’s call a spade a spade. Because if the associations were sincere about its function, they would offer the stickers to residents for free, or at the very least, at cost. The mere fact alone that armed guards are ordered by the associations to give both residents and non-residents alike a hard time unless they purchase them, makes it no different to racketeering.


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