Apprehensionitis

You’d be surprised at what spending hours alone in a vehicle with a co-columnist can do to a person and his creative juices. Several years ago, Manny de los Reyes and I spent an entire day in transit together, jumping from cars to planes and back to cars – talking about what we could do to spice up The Philippine STAR’s Business Motoring pages. A couple of months after that, the Backseat Driver column was born.

About a month ago, I spent an entire day inside a vehicle with James Deakin. That’s a lethal combination, that Deakin-Magsajo tandem – almost as productive as the de los Reyes-Magsajo tandem. Yeah. James and I, we figured we’d talk about what makes traffic in Metro Manila suck worse than a Nick Cage movie. So we came up with column fodder. That’s it… column fodder from rants. No fantastic new section idea, just… column fodder. Told you we were a lethal combination.

Anyway, that’s how James came up with The Road to Nowhere (Philippine STAR, May 6, 2009), and that’s how I came up with what you’re reading now. James insisted that the worst thing about Metro Manila traffic is our authorities’ penchant for taking away everything that makes motoring in this country easy. I, on the other hand, argued that it really is more our authorities’ lack of desire to teach us what’s right – coupled with their over-zealousness to apprehend those who break the law – that makes Metro Manila traffic the pits. We obviously didn’t agree. So we swore we’d write about our theories – and have you readers decide if either of us actually made any sense. And so here we are.

I guess my little prologue explained pretty much what I mean by “apprehensionitis”. In Metro Manila, traffic authorities never really bother to disseminate information. They never really bother to make the effort to let us know how and when we’ll be breaking the law. They would really much rather catch us breaking the said laws. The amazing thing is that they change the laws faster than Manny Pacquiao throws left hooks. Well, maybe I exaggerate. But you do get my point. In Metro Manila, traffic laws are quite fickle – to say the least.

As an example, let me ask you: When was the last time you were apprehended for breaking a traffic law that you didn’t know even existed? Did you make a U-turn in an area that was once upon a time an actual U-turn? And was there anyone there to actually prevent you from making that U-turn? Did you turn left in a suddenly closed exit? Was there anyone there to redirect you or close off the exit to begin with? Did you enter what you have always believed to be a two-way street only to find out at the end of the street that there were traffic personnel waiting to pounce on your sorry butt for going into what is now a one-way street? Let’s face it. If you regularly ply the streets of Metro Manila, chances are, you’ve been victimized by this kind of practice at least once.

A colleague, Jinno Rufino of Studio 23, sent me an exasperated text rant a couple of weeks back. His car, he told me, was towed because he had parked it along a street facing the wrong direction. It was a two-way street, he said. And there were no signs that said he couldn’t park facing the “wrong” side of the road. There were only signs that made it clear that he could actually park in the said area. There were no authorities either who could have warned him of the directional misdemeanor. He was, of course, in an area that he didn’t frequent. And therein lies the catch.

Our authorities assume, the moment that they decide to implement a “City Ordinance” or a “Special Decree”, that we all have instant intrinsic knowledge of what’s right and wrong out on the streets. Our ignorance is no excuse. Even if our ignorance is borne out of actual deductive logic. Jinno, for example, purposely refused to park in a No Parking zone because he knew for a fact that it would be tantamount to breaking the law. He was completely unaware of the additional provisional law that he accidentally eventually broke.

How about this other example… At the foot of the flyover along EDSA that leads to the Airport Road in Pasay, there is a bottleneck that leads to Roxas Boulevard. Hard headed motorists who just cannot wait their turn in line create a lane that ought to lead to the flyover, but they end up swerving at the last second into the bottleneck. The result is chaos, of course. Daily chaos. But our authorities do squat to prevent this phenomenon from happening. Instead, the cops wait for those who violate the basic No Swerving law to make their mistake, then the cops apprehend them once they’re in the bottleneck area. The result? Even more chaos. The practice is utterly revolting in its absolute stupidity.

The sad thing is that our authorities – most of them, anyway – seem to be afflicted with “apprehensionitis” – and they don’t have any idea of their affliction. I haven’t seen them try to mend their ways, anyway. Most of them wait in a comfortable area, watch you make your mistake, then pounce on you for being the dumbest, most ignorant, most inefficient and most inconsiderate road user this side of the Earth. But they’ll never try to stop you from making the mistake first. They won’t try to educate you.

Some day I’ll probably understand why the need to punish people far outweighs the need to prevent people from actually committing mistakes. But so long as such practices contribute to messing up an already screwed up situation further, I’ll keep writing about how utterly awful and senseless the entire process is. Because the truth is that it would be so much more wonderful to be taught than to get caught…

Sometimes I really do think you guys have psychic powers. Imagine commenting on an article from a different section in The STAR about unfair apprehensions on a week when we schedule a column about unfair apprehensions…

 “A businesswoman accused personnel of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) of extorting P150 from her driver after illegally towing her pickup truck to the MMDA garage in Pasig City.” Are there any means to stop this kind of “robbery” by the MMDA and its “accredited” gangs? Last week, my supervisor fell victim to this kind of “modus”. It happened at the ever-famous elevated U-turn along C-5. He was stuck almost at the middle and it took only a few minutes (He actually beat the PNP’s 7-minute response “allowance”…) when two MMDA towing vehicles raced against each other in an attempt to tow his car. He pleaded with the people, asked if they could just HELP him pull his car down to the end of the ramp, but the MMDA personnel answered “Pasensya na sir, nasa batas kasi yan”… Wow, anong batas kaya yun? Is it an RA, BP, or EO by “Hero” Fernando?

– KERSMcPherson (Seriously…are we even surprised?)

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ERRATUM: Mea culpa. One of the items in our section last week about a bank promo (Your second car for free!) had apparently expired by press time. We apologize for any confusion caused by this oversight.