Master of insertion

Egay Uy .

WHAT do you call an employee who puts one over his officemates in terms of registering his attendance in the office?

Worse, if one who does this is a head of office who inserts his name in the log book for employee attendance to make it appear that he was present at the time indicated in the log book, although reality is that he was either late or was never present at all.

Or worst, if a space in the logbook is left blank – reserved for him by the office attendance checker on his instructions – after the entries have been closed for the day.

Such a master of insertion will have to be made accountable for every reason in the books.

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There are people who simply feel entitled. Common example are owners or employees of business establishments, e.g., eatery or karenderia, or sari-sari store, or even offices that are supposed to be manned by well-informed people, that would regularly place obstructions on the side of the road fronting their establishments to literally reserve the space as their exclusive parking area for customers, or worse, for the manager.

Why is this happening?  Well, hopefully to awaken the memory of some people, the practice has practically developed into entitlement because of the neglect of those who are supposed to implement ordinances in the past several years.

Worse, if those who are supposed to implement ordinances continue to be indifferent to the entitlement of some to the dismay, consternation and disappointment of many.

We can always cite specific examples. But even then, probably the conscience of those who feel entitled have become too callous that they no longer care if they have transgressed the rights of so many to the use of public areas such as parking slots where roadside parking is allowed.

Facebook is replete with posts showing entitled motorists who park just anywhere, entitled business operators “reserving” public areas as their parking spaces, entitled entrepreneurs who use public spaces as extensions ot their commercial slots, and many similar others.

Lately, after the pyrotechnics festival in uptown Cagayan de Oro, trash and garbage literally littered the venue when onlookers and the crowd dispersed after the pyro show. This is another entitlement that has to be checked by each and every individual, especially those who are good in lamenting yet doing nothing to himself to correct the bad practice.

It’s not yet late. We could all start with ourselves if we expect to immediately see the desired change.

(Egay Uy is a lawyer. He chairs the City’s Regulatory and Complaint Board, co-chairs with the city mayor the City Price Coordinating Council, and chairs the city’s Joint Inspection Team.  He retired as a vice president of Cepalco.)