THERE are quite a number of helpful information that we get from social media. Such is the new number plate hijacking scheme or modus operandi. Accordingly, hi-jackers follow a motorist to a parking lot and after the driver leaves the vehicle, they remove the number plate and wait. When the owner comes back and drive off, they follow and then overtake the car owner displaying the number plate out of their window as if it just fell-off and they want to give it back to the car owner. The ploy now comes to work perfectly when the car owners pulls off to get the presumably fallen number plate back. It is this time when guns comes out and the robbers take the car. Maybe they even take both the owner and the car. This according to the source is a very well rehearsed and organised plan and everything happens very quickly. Other motorists may not be aware of what is happening at the road so they should take extra precaution. If you happen to witness such incident along the highway, please alert others to this danger if there are others following nearby. It also helps if you can slow down and discretely snap a photo from inside your car without the perpetrators noticing it and upload it in popular social media accounts stating the incident. A lot of such incidents were repelled and reported because of the interventions of concerned citizens.
On the side, my family and I would like to thank those who consoled and grieved with us during the wake and burial of my wife's departed father. I am writing this column with my iPhone while we prepare for another work related task in the big city.
The Duterte administration's Executive Order on Freedom of Information is probably one of the things that will keep me preoccupied with my new role as the receiving officer of my government office. My wife and I were in public service for three decades already priding ourselves of having served six Philippine Presidents. This time as the country hosts the ASEAN yearly gathering of ten Asian nations, we are again all geared up to meet the demands of this undertaking even if no specific event will happen in Baguio or Cordillera. Just last week, an agency convergence of the Presidential Communications and Operations Office happened in Baguio with much hype and media blitz that highlights the work work programs of the present administration. For those who want to be updated on ASEAN concerns and matters being waged by the Duterte administration, an information kiosk is set at SM Baguio for such purpose with info materials about the services of various government offices.
Without doubt, it was a productive and successful moment for a public official like my wife. Time and again, she has beaten the odds and proved her worth as a public servant. But, not known to many and deep inside her, bleeds a river of sadness as her father lays in state at a funeral parlor 350 kilometers away. It may even seem to be against Filipino culture and tradition but her conviction and commitment to government service is as firm as the tombstone of her ancestors and as hard as the balisong blade of the Batanguenos. The work standards that she has set to her co-workers is unequalled and this I can attest as her living partner. I dare those who criticize her to face us squarely. I too have my own set of standards but we will always stand up to what is right even if it means sacrifices.