According to more than 100 jeepney and public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers who held a rally in front of Mandaue City Hall, the answer is a big “no.” The prosecutor was criticized for his heavy-handed ways in dealing not only with PUV drivers but private motorists who have experienced first hand his temper flares.
When sought for comment, Mabanto’s temper showed again as he waved for news reporters: “No way! I’ve had enough of you.”
Cebu Daily News reviewed a list of three road rage incidents involving Mabanto. These were cases with private motorists, not the flag-waving jeepney drivers.
Not easily forgotten is his confrontation with a Japanese driver, who exchanged angry words and got hauled off and mauled by bystanders.
Jeepney and tricycle drivers are a tough lot, among the hardest to discipline when it comes to stopping in the wrong parts of the road.
They park where they please as “kings of the road” and bark at passengers, causing traffic congestion wherever they may go.
It takes discipline, traffic experience and the patience of Job to deal with them.
While a case can be made about Mabanto’s traffic management skills, there is little doubt that his temperament cancels out the good parts.
Perhaps Mabanto sees drivers both private and public as needing an iron hand to discipline them.
We recall that Samuel Darza, the first chief of the Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (Citom), was able to make the city a shining example of road discipline in the mid-1980s.
He was firm, unyielding when it came to influence peddling and bribes. There was a lot of grumbling but eventually drivers towed the line. But Darza kept his cool and didn’t go around mauling motorists or yelling at reporters. When he left Citom, the traffic system lost a strongman and Cebu City’s haphazard traffic is struggling again.
Mabantoto, as a prosecutor, must have dealt with suspects in criminal cases and sees his job as co-chairman of a traffic enforcement agency as nothing more than an extension of his job. Is that why he tends to browbeat violators?
Another admirable traffic czar was Bayani Fernando as Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman.
Market vendors and jeepney drivers rallied to high heavens over his draconian measures, but never once did they complain that he had physically and verbally abused them.
Mabanto is certainly no Sammy Darza or Bayani Fernando but he could take extra effort to earn the respect of PUV drivers and motorists.
All he needs to know is that it has been done, in messier cities and Metro Manila. So why shouldn’t we find an effective, traffic czar in Mandaue City who isn’t a boor or a bully?