My Family’s Close Call

It was a balmy Tuesday evening. It didn’t rain the whole day but the air had a tropical stormy smell to it. The radio in my office was blaring how August 8, 2006 was supposed to be a lucky day — 888 — August being the 8th month and the numbers 2, 0, 0 and 6 when added together makes 8.

My wife Shawie just left my office with our six-year-old daughter Vette and our 10-month-old son Chevy after conducting her business there. Vette, who didn’t have classes that day, was asking me if we could have dinner at her favorite Vietnamese restaurant, but since Shawie saw that I was still busy working on the next issue of MotorCycle Magazine, she opted to head home with the kids so she can prepare dinner. They drove off in our family car, a 1993 Nissan Sentra 1600 Super Saloon and I was going to follow on my motorbike after I was done with work. It was, in essence, a typical busy day for our family.

At about eight minutes to eight in the evening, or about fifteen minutes after they left, my wife rang up my mobile phone and I was almost sure she was going to ask me what I would like for dinner. Instead, she had a shaking voice, asking me to come over at Mindanao Avenue near Congressional Avenue, which was near our residence. "Please come here now. We just had a traffic accident."

I was petrified for a moment. This was the call you always pray that you’ll never get. All I can remember saying was "okay" before hanging up the phone, shutting down my computer, turning off the aircon and lights in the office and jumping on my bike. I think I did all of these in just a matter of seconds because as I rode out unto the street, my mind was racing ahead of me.

"What happened? How big an accident was it? Did they get hurt? Are they alright?" These thoughts kept flashing in my head as I sped towards the Elliptical Road. "I should have asked them to wait so we could have had dinner together. I should have… I should have…I should have…" continued my thoughts. Guilt was beginning to take over me.

In what seemed like a lifetime, I finally got to the Caltex station at Mindanao Avenue near Congressional Avenue and all I can see was rubber-necking traffic on the road and a wrecked Toyota Corolla taxi facing the gutter. I couldn’t see our car or my family. I stopped and jumped off my bike, asked the kibitzers where the driver of the taxi was and they pointed me to the StarMart at the station. The minute I walked in, I immediately shouted at him and one of the traffic cops intervened and politely tried to calm me down. The cop pointed me to my wife and kids who were still inside our car, which sat derelict in the leftmost lane of the four-lane Mindanao Avenue. Vette cried when I went to her and hugged her. "The bad taxi hit us, Daddy," she said between sobs. "Didn’t the driver know that there are little kids in our car?" she asked innocently.

My wife narrated that she was driving in front of other cars from the intersection after the light turned green. Luckily, she was driving relatively slow when she noticed a pair of headlights coming from the other side of the avenue and jumping the center island. She stopped immediately but the taxi veered into our car, clipped the right front area real hard before narrowly missing a truck on the second lane and coming to rest at the gutter of the Caltex station. She assured me that she and the kids weren’t hurt and they were just shaken by the impact. I felt relieved that they were alright, though I was alarmed at the thought that if the taxi strayed a little more to its right, it could have collided head-on with our car. It was indeed a close call for my family.

After getting the anger out of my system, I surveyed the Sentra and was dismayed with the amount of damage inflicted on our car. If you recall, our car was treated to a new coat of DuPont Jaguar Garnet Red paint late last year at the Jaguar/Ferrari/Range Rover service center courtesy of its president, Wellington Soong, to showcase the service center’s workmanship. The car looked better than new when it came out after more than a month in the workshop and we (my wife and I) were pleased with the sheen of the paint, the luster of the coating and the overall meticulous workmanship. But it only took a couple of seconds for a reckless taxi driver to deface the shiny paint job and ruin the front end of our car.

The cab driver, a certain Reynante Rabi, was telling the cops a fantastic story. First, it was a bus that suddenly veered into his path that caused him to loose control of his taxi cab. Next, he changed his story into a motorcycle that veered into his path. Then, he added that two motorcyclists were trying to block his path and were pointing a shiny chrome-plated .45-caliber pistol at him. He also added that the cab lost its brakes but he managed to steer the cab away from the motorcyclists thus avoiding their deaths. What a stinking liar!

When asked for his driver’s license, all he could produce was a traffic citation ticket (TCT) issued by the Parañaque police. When he, and later on the police, tried to contact the taxi operator at telephone number 278-1330, the line just kept ringing. Reynante was visibly uncoordinated that he couldn’t remember other numbers like the mobile number of the operator and just kept mumbling his constantly varying story. So we asked the cops to keep him in jail overnight and the taxi impounded at the yard of the PNP Traffic Section in Balintawak while we had our car towed to Nissan North EDSA. The whole harrowing affair ended at about 10:30 p.m.

The next morning (Wednesday), I borrowed my dad’s car and together with my wife, got Reynante out of jail and drove him to their depot in Karuhatan to talk to his taxi operator. On the road, he kept yakking about how the cops stole his money and raided his wallet when actually, the cops told me before we left that they searched him during the night and found his driver’s license, which was supposedly confiscated in Parañaque, buried deep in his wallet. It turned out that the TCT was for the taxi cab’s license plate which was confiscated by the Parañaque police for a traffic violation. This practice of showing a TCT instead of a driver’s license is becoming a blatant excuse abused by PUV drivers. What @$$holes!

Anyway, when we got to the taxi barn, we saw about 20 to 25 taxis with plate numbers ending in 5 and 6 parked at the lot. Reynante boasted that his operator runs about 200 taxis and added that the cabs that were there were parked because of the MMDA’s vehicular reduction scheme or coding scheme. He further boasted that the operator has other cabs with plate numbers ending in 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9 and 0 plying the streets.

The operator, Richard Sta. Maria, was initially miffed when he saw Reynante and became more so after the taxi driver narrated his previous night’s "ordeal". He immediately asked me and my wife if we are amenable to have our car repaired at his shop, which of course, we declined. We explained to him that our car was carefully and regularly maintained at Nissan North EDSA and we don’t entrust it to just any shop or mechanic. "Hindi ko kasi kaya na magpagawa sa kasa. (I can’t afford to have it fixed at the dealership)," he retorted and then asked me if I have comprehensive insurance. When I said that I didn’t, he said that his cabs didn’t have either and then insinuated that I should’ve insured my car. What a character!

To cut a long story short, Richard, my wife and my father (who’s a lawyer) met at the police station the next day (Thursday) and poor Reynante Rabi (the taxi driver) didn’t show up at all. Richard continued his plea to have the car repaired at his shop and maintained that he couldn’t afford the dealer’s repair bill, which was later estimated to run up to P107,000. "How can I afford that when I get my income only from four old and battered taxi cabs? The other cabs you saw at my lot were owned by other operators."

Really? Liar, liar. Pant’s on fire.

Sob story, Richard, but I don’t buy it. Your line of thinking, as well as that of your driver Reynante’s, compels me to ask some questions: Isn’t it that the law requires public utility vehicles (PUV) to be insured? Shouldn’t the LTFRB require PUVs to be covered not only for Compulsary Third Party Liability (CTPL) but for Comprehensive Coverage as well? After all, PUVs are always on the road and they should have enough financial coverage should they get damaged or hit some thing and not just some one.

Isn’t the taxi cab the operator’s responsibility and not just the driver’s? I ask this question because the cop handling our case was bent on going after the driver instead of the operator. Richard had a slightly cocky attitude until my dad reiterated that he’s also responsible for the accident caused by his taxi and we could sue him for property damage.

Isn’t it a requirement by the LTFRB for taxi cab operators to fully disclose their franchises? Richard Sta. Maria kept insisting that he only has four taxis and he initially said that the other cabs we saw on his lot were "nakikikabit" or extensions of his franchise and even dared me to check with the LTFRB or the LTO. He later retracted his statement and said that the other cabs were just parking on his lot because of their subdivision’s strict parking ordinances. Curiously, the ROKI taxi cab that hit our car listed a certain M. Prado of Block 45 Lot 16 of Oakridge Subdivision, Salawag, Dasmarinas, Cavite as its operator. Why doesn’t it show Richard Sta. Maria as its operator?

Isn’t it true that operators collect P1,000 as "boundaries" from their taxi drivers everyday? With four cabs alone, Richard earns P4,000 a day or P24,000 a week if his cabs only run six days instead of seven. Thus, he has the potential to earn P96,000 a month yet he cannot pool up the money to insure his cabs or repair the damages his cab did to my car. What more if it were 200 cabs? Does the BIR know about this?

To add salt to our wounds, my family and I were greatly inconvenienced. My wife uses the Sentra to drive Vette to school and to attend to her small business but with our car in the shop, they have to take a cab, hopefully not driven by another Reynante Rabi. (Heaven forbid!) To date, repair work on our car hasn’t commenced because Richard is still negotiating with us. From the looks of things, it will be a long time before we can have the car back to its original running condition.

Still and all, August 8, 2006 was a lucky day. I believe that God allowed this accident to happen to save other motorists on Mindanao Avenue that night. You see, if our car wasn’t there, that wayward taxi could have plowed into other faster cars, which could have created a bigger disaster that could have caused some fatalities. And if it weren’t for my wife’s slow driving and quick thinking, Richard Sta. Maria would be paying for more than just one damaged car. He could be up to his neck in death claims, hospital bills and property damages that could run up to a few million pesos.

I thank God that even if my family had a close call, they were unharmed — as were others. (Yes, including that annoying Reynante Rabi) After all, human lives cannot be replaced and critical wounds take a long time to heal. Cars, on the other hand, can be repaired or their parts replaced. It will only take some time and money.

Here are some of your Backseat Driver comments from weeks past…

Aside from the Hyundai Tucson, are there any other compact SUVs equipped with a diesel engine? — 09205917008 (None.)

It’s about time government agencies act together and just issue traffic violation tickets with fines payable at banks. — 09219085555

Will somebody please enlighten me? What does the word "Sportage" mean? Is it English? Is it Korean? — 09198470581 (It’s a proper noun, coined specifically for the particular Suzuki unit in question, just like the Optra and the Altis, which are not in any proper English dictionary.)

Attention MMDA personnel at Floodway, Pasig. Please clear your sidewalks — especially of junk shops with no regard for the safety of motorists from Pasig to Taytay. — 09218019277

The LTO must ban tinted car license plate covers. You can hardly read the license plates! And, they’re mostly seen on service vans and questionable looking cars. — 09208542477

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