It’s always better to leave early for the airport these days—you never know how bad traffic will be on the way, and what sort of delays you’ll encounter checking in for your flight then going through immigration and security.
Still, that’s no reason to violate traffic rules in your rush to get to the airport, no matter how wealthy you are or how nice your car is.
Bong Nebrija, new task force operations head of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), recently apprehended a BMW 7-Series in the EDSA Busway. In case you needed reminding, the EDSA Busway may only be used by public utility buses as well as by marked emergency and government vehicles.
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Nebrija then found out that vehicle was on its way to the airport.
“We were on the Busway and [suddenly] this luxury car swerved inside in front of us,” Nebrija wrote in a Facebook post. “I guess there is no such government vehicle this expensive and more so it doesn’t look like any emergency responder at all. Plus the plate is a private one.
“When we reached Guadalupe, I called out the attention of the enforcer to flag them down. I went down to see who it was and ola one rich guy going to the airport.”
And it appears the vehicle in question is a regular violator of EDSA Busway rules. “Sabi nung driver lagi daw nilang ginagawa at ngayon lang sila nahuli,” Nebrija replied to one of the comments. “Sabi daw ng boss nila dun pumasok.”
As we wrote before, “just because nobody’s around to enforce them doesn’t mean you can go ahead and ignore them.”
“In fairness, that is one nice car, BMW 735i,” Nebrija also wrote, but assured in the comments that a violation ticket was issued.
Out of curiousity, we looked up the, uh, interesting two-tone paint job the vehicle was wearing. Turns out it’s a factory option costing €12,000 (around P728,000) on top of the base price. The latest-gen 7-Series made its Philippine debut in March, and the 735i has a price tag of P8.99 million.
