This is important. We hate authority. We always have. And I'm not talking about Filipinos. Every single person in the world hates authority. We hate being told what we can and can't do, what's morally right and wrong, what's legal or illegal. I believe it's more the punishment that can't stand. When we're given the punishment, we hate it. When someone who has wronged us gets a smaller punishment than they deserve, we hate it. And with authority, comes the authority to impose penalties and punishments.
This is all reminiscent of a two siblings who get into a fight. This happens a lot with my nephews so I'll be using them as an example. Most of the time, they're the best of friends but if something comes up where they do get into a fight, they can get a bit unruly. Most of the time, it happens when one of them doesn't follow the rule that they should take turns in playing with games on the phone. My sister then comes in, stops the fight and declares, "No one plays with the phone!" One of my nephews will then protest saying, "But he got to play with the phone more!" This complaint is heard but doesn't change the verdict of the judge or the person in authority.
No one will say my sister was in the wrong in using her authority to discipline her children. One of them will say that the ruling was unfair but it doesn't mean the authority of my sister would in any way be diminished.
A common complaint I hear when a government agency takes action is that they should be addressing another problem first. Case in point would be when news spread that this administration would be imposing a nationwide smoking ban. Many critics were quick to point out that smoking poses less of a health and environmental risk than say, smoke belching from old trucks and jeeps that infest our roads. Does this information (even if it's true) take away from the fact that a nationwide smoking ban would be a great idea? Conversely, this also doesn't mean that banning smoke belching vehicles from our roads would also be great idea.
Both are great ideas and in a perfect world, both would take effect yesterday. It just so happens that this administration decided to act on one before the other. Most people view these issues as flowchart where one action should come before another when in fact, it's more like a branching tree where you could successfully implement one or multiple policies independent of each other and still move forward. This is a common theme in any time, under any administration, and in any culture.
We believe we know better than the ones in authority. That may very well be the case, but without actually being that person in authority, we may never truly know if we know any better. Persons in authority, especially in governments will have to weigh several things on their plate and thus they may perceive things differently from the rest of us. While we may think that getting Uber and Grab drivers off the road is a wrong move by the government, we need to affirm their law abiding policies. They saw an illegal activity and answered with a punishment corresponding to the gravity of the offense. Is it unfortunate that it had to fall on a service which the riding public loves? Yes, but we should affirm the government when they protect the law.
This is not to say, however, that we should just let the authorities use and abuse their power. What we must realize is that authority lies in the office and NOT on the person sitting in the office. We should respect the office and all that it hopes to defend. The picture I used in this post is that of Donald Trump. He's not the most popular guy in the world right now and for good reason. You can say all you want that you hate him. Some people might like him. But whether you hate or like him, no one can say they hate the office of the president (this could be another topic I could comment on).
Our duty as citizens/netizens should be clear. We applaud the authorities for upholding the law. We should also hold them to uphold the law equally. Going back to the smoking and smoke belching analogy, we shouldn't be saying, "Catch the smoke belchers first and then smoking can follow." We should say, "Catch the smoke belchers next!" Lastly, we must hold them to truly uphold any and all laws we have. We may not like it but we have laws for a reason and they need to be followed. Even if no one follows it and even if no one enforces it.
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