Taking the joy out of Christmas

I hate to put a damper on everyone’s mood one day after Christmas, but the situation in Metro Manila has already reached its breaking point. A balikbayan friend who had not been back for just two years was surprised, more like shocked, to see how the city’s chaotic traffic and pollution have gone from very bad to the worst ever he has seen. He is afflicted with a mild form of allergic asthma but in less than a week it developed into something more serious. He was advised by the doctor to immediately move out of the city. He just decided to cut his vacation short, leaving the country barely a week after he arrived. Doctors have definitely established the correlation between air pollution, stress caused by traffic and developing a heart condition.

What happened to this Filipino visitor is already a clear indication that the city is no longer habitable. In many parts of the metropolis, people no longer pay attention to the festive mood brought out by the Christmas lights adorning the streets because they are so tired and stressed with the traffic jams. Very often one would hear people acerbically remarking, “What’s so merry about Christmas?” The joy has indeed been taken out of the holiday season.

For many, Christmas has become a major pain and a nightmare. Even the simple act of giving gifts can turn into a tedious process with messengers stuck on the road for hours. Even attending Christmas parties is enough to sap your strength and make you groan in anxiety. It took me about an hour and a half to get to the Philippine STAR Christmas party from my Makati office to the Sofitel.

But the worst thing that can really make you violently angry are the buses that have literally turned into killers because of the psycho drivers that are literally scaring motorists, pedestrians and passengers alike. These drivers feel like they are “king of the road,” more like “killer of the road,” with the arrogant way they drive – stopping anywhere they please and racing with each other to get as many passengers as they can.

What happened to a former Makati RTC Judge and his wife was truly infuriating because clearly the Corimba bus driver was totally at fault. The driver himself had admitted that he was going at high speed along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City – which has now earned the unsavory reputation as the “killer avenue” with so many accidents occurring on that thoroughfare. Can you imagine, here was this elderly couple on their way to “Simbang Gabi” or Christmas mass, looking forward to a peaceful time in church to commemorate the season – only to be zapped like flies by this speeding bus!

We can only dream now about the “old” days when one could enjoy walking along Manila’s streets on the way to Simbang Gabi with pleasant weather. Nowadays, if pollution doesn’t kill you then you will probably die due to an apoplectic fit triggered by stress-induced hypertension or worse, get swiped by a speeding bus or get mugged and killed for your cell phone.

If the current administration is serious about “change” in the way we do things in this country, then we should start by making the LTFRB etc. be more strict and require every bus driver to go through a series of psychological tests to make sure they are responsible, safety conscious and not some psycho let loose on the road. There should be something like a two-strike policy wherein the licenses of bus companies will be permanently revoked the second time they are involved in accidents. There have been so many suggestions to decongest Metro Manila’s traffic like putting some sort of a speedometer on buses that would automatically control the speed of the vehicle if it exceeds the prescribed speed limit. Instead of the commission basis, bus drivers should also be given regular salaries to keep them from racing with other drivers to get passengers.

There are so many things that can be done to manage the situation – but it requires a lot of work, creativity and most importantly the political will to do it. This is what I told DZRJ’s David Nye and his listeners during an interview in his daily morning radio program the other day.

In New York City for instance, taxi drivers are required to go through all kinds of tests first before they could drive a cab. In fact, the so-called “medallion taxis” – those familiar yellow cabs with a plastic emblem attached to their hood – are the only ones in the city that are allowed to pick up passengers. The “medallion system” was introduced in 1937 by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia to regulate the number and at the same time raise the standard of taxis plying the streets of New York. Over the years, the medallion has become so valuable that a fleet medallion (for large taxi companies) costs as much as $600,000 in 2007. If a taxi driver loses the medallion, it is practically impossible to get it back.

There are in fact many solutions to some of our very basic problems, but somehow things just get worse and worse most especially at Christmas time. In Metro Manila, it has become a nightmare. Many of us are just glad Christmas is over.

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