Metro Manila Development Authority(MMDA) officers are infamous for extortion along EDSA-victimizing helpless drivers, but this story will surely change your expectations to these traffic enforcers. A motorist who encountered these men even said on Facebook, "not all angels have wings" when he narrated his experience with the MMDA traffic enforcers. 

J.P. Mercado, in a lengthy post on social media, admitted that he is not familiar in engine mechanics but he can drive a car. Unexpectedly, his dreaded horror occurred on the street early Monday of June 20, 2016 at the middle of Katipunan Avenue. He was already close to his house but his car stalled for some reasons he couldn't identify.

He tried to stay cool and relax while waiting for some good Samaritan to help him fix his car. In no time, he started to panic since he noticed that the drivers following him were already agitated. Some honked their horns with signs of being irritated due to the fact that he was blocking the traffic flow.

To further elaborate the next series of events, here's the detailed post of Mercado.

I was at the Ateneo Gate 3 intersection, and I was a sitting duck. I watched the stoplight change colors helplessly as cars and trucks honked at me and switched lanes with almost audible irritation, despite my hazard lights being on.

All my dashboard’s indicator lights would light up when I’d try to start the car too. I wasn’t sure what was wrong. Maybe my week-old battery was faulty? What was that smell? At this unholy hour, I prayed aloud, asking for my car to start and get me to the closest gas station, which was the Petron at the C.P. Garcia intersection, just around half a kilometer away.

What was he looking for?

I kept looking around for MMDA officers. I knew that once they spotted me, it was game over.

Sure enough, after around 10 minutes of fretting, and an incoherent call to Motolite’s hotline, I saw MMDA officers on the other side of the road.
They were coming for me.

Wishing for the best

I felt that I was in serious trouble, and I accepted my fate as I watched the MMDA officers get off their bikes.

All my fears, however, melted away as soon as one of the officers gave me the friendliest smile one could ever hope for at that time of night and said, with a concerned and consoling laugh, “Sir, ano pong nangyari?”

Signs of Relief

I told them how the car stalled, while confessing that I knew nothing about cars, and so they asked me to open up my car’s hood to see what was wrong.

When we opened it up—which I should have done in the first place—, we discovered that my car’s radiator cap had popped off, probably because it wasn’t screwed on properly, they surmised. So it definitely WASN’T the battery.

They asked if I had bottled water with me. I remembered that I didn’t get to replace it the last time—which I also should have done—, but I told them that there was a 7-Eleven just across from where we were.