Gabriel’s halo slips
Government authority is not a license to preach, and the MMDA should never become Go’s personal pulpit for roadside morality plays.
Daily TribuneGovernment authority is not a license to preach, and the MMDA should never become Go’s personal pulpit for roadside morality plays.
Most traffic enforcers — at least the straight ones and not the mulcters — issue citations, explain the violation, and move on, secure in the knowledge that the law would take its course without the benefit of a camera lens or a Facebook audience.
Gabriel Go of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) operates differently. Roadside encounters with him often end with a lecture, a recording, and an upload.
Go’s latest controversy (and there are so many others) involved a public school teacher apprehended for riding without a helmet. The teacher admitted the violation but reportedly pleaded that the video not be posted online. It was uploaded anyway, turning what should have been a routine traffic stop into a public spectacle that has reached far beyond the roadside.
Go’s defenders point to the blurring of faces as proof no harm was done. That defense asks too much of a blur. A blur, after all, may reduce recognition among strangers, but it does little for the person filmed. His family knows. His colleagues know. Anyone familiar with the circumstances can often identify him regardless. A blur limits exposure, but it doesn’t erase it.
The deeper issue is due process. A traffic citation is an allegation by the enforcer and, yes, by Go. As it’s not a verdict, the person cited has the right to contest it, present evidence, and take the matter to court if need be.
Publicizing an encounter on social media as Go does, before that process concludes, turns an unproven allegation into a public verdict rendered by camera and comment section, instead of the proper office.
The MMDA itself seems to have recognized this risk years ago, having reportedly directed that operational documentation be run through its Public Information Office rather than individual social media accounts. If that policy exists and was ignored here, that’s a real institutional lapse, and a separate problem from the due process concern.
There are also questions, raised repeatedly based on what we see online, about whether Go has consistently worn a proper uniform and displayed identification while enforcing.
They matter a lot. An enforcer’s authority rests partly on visible compliance with the standards he applies to others. The one who seeks to enforce the law must not be the first to bend it.
None of this requires guessing as to why Go posts these videos. He may believe documentation deters bad behavior, or think it builds accountability. He may simply enjoy the attention like a social media hound.
Yeah, motive is hard to establish from the outside, and the argument doesn’t need it. What can be said with confidence is that Go’s practice creates the due process problem described above, regardless of intent.
That’s reason enough for scrutiny. That scrutiny should extend to the MMDA itself. Suspending Go isn’t nothing, but it’s fair to ask whether it answers the real question.
Whether Go should be reassigned, retrained, more closely supervised, or removed from enforcement duties isn’t a question this piece can settle from the outside. What can be said is this: the office carries public trust, and the standard for exercising it should be restraint and procedure, not visibility.
Enforcement should look like enforcement, not a social media production. Certainly not a verdict rendered before the law has had its say. Government authority is not a license to preach, and the MMDA should never become Go’s personal pulpit for roadside morality plays.