Embarrassing motorcycle fall MAR ROXAS HAS HIMSELF TO BLAME FOR FAUX PAS

By Manny Pinol

Administration party stalwarts and even Malacanang sounded irritated as they responded to criticisms and even brickbats from netizens directed at DILG Secretary Mar Roxas III following the publication of a photo showing him fall from a motorcycle in Samar which went viral in the Internet.

“Instead of drawing flak over his motorcycle accident, [he] should even be commended for going out his way even to the point of endangering himself, just to make a personal assessment of how the government could best help the areas devastated by Super Typhoon Ruby,” said Congressman Senen Sarmiento of Samar, Secretary General of the Liberal Party.

Sarmiento and Roxas’ defenders completely missed the issue being raised by netizens who roundly criticized the DILG Secretary.

It was not the motorcycle fall which was the issue but the fact that the photo of the fall showed that the DILG Secretary, who is the presumptive presidential candidate of the ruling party, was not wearing a helmet.

Riding a motorcycle without a safety helmet is a violation of the law, the same law which Mar Roxas earlier vowed to implement strictly all over the country.

The same embarrassing situation actually happened to Davao City Mayor Rody Duterte who was flagged down by traffic policemen in his own city for not wearing a helmet.

The Mayor apologized to the traffic policemen and surrendered his license. He then underwent a mandatory seminar for drivers caught violating traffic rules.

Mar Roxas and his public relations men should have immediately realized the faux pas and issued a statement apologizing to the public for violating the law.

Offering to pay the fine would have been a great PR coup.

But Mar, one of the most decent persons in government service today who I could personally vouch is beyond reproach when it comes to corruption, has always had problems with his spin doctors and image gurus.

When he first took a shot at the Senate, he topped the elections by projecting himself as “Mr. Palengke” following sorties in the public markets checking on the prices of common commodities.

After that outstanding PR campaign, however, Mar never had any involvement with the “palengke” or the people in the public market anymore.

Then, his crazy PR men asked him to drive a “Trisikad,” photos of which were circulated in the media hoping perhaps that it would project a Mar Roxas who is in touch with the common tao.

This was followed by a photo of him carrying a sack of confiscated rice (or feeds?) and then another photo showing him drenched in the rain manning traffic in a street corner in Metro Manila.

Seeing those photos, I wished I knew who his PR men were so that I would be able to bang their heads and bring them back to their senses.

If they thought the photos of Mar driving the “trisikad,” carrying a sack of feeds and manning the traffic under the rain earned him “pogi” points, they were absolutely wrong.

Those photos were so incongruous and unrealistic and they made Mar Roxas look stupid.

Which brings us back to the motorcycle fall without a helmet on.

Mar did not have to “endanger his life” to show concern for the typhoon-victims. He could just have stayed in the command center in Borongan Proper or where ever and issue commands from there.

Or if he really wanted some good photo ops, he could have taken a 4-wheel vehicle to go to the typhoon-damaged areas.

Or if he really wanted to take the motorcycle, he should have remembered that the wearing of helmet is required by law.

But then that would not look good in the photos because his face would be covered by the helmet.

Malacanang and the LP stalwarts should not begrudge the netizens for taking a swipe at Mar Roxas and his unsightly motorcycle fall.

They should instead look for whoever advised Mar Roxas to ride that motorcycle for the photo ops and hang him from a coconut tree, if there’s still one left standing in Borongan.

Finally, I share with them an unsolicited advice on how to package Mar Roxas:

Just let Mar Roxas be Mar Roxas, a super rich kid who is in government because he wants to serve, who may be brusque and abrasive at times but who is beyond reproach in the issue of corruption.