‘My Way’: Kill the singer not the song?

Is it the singer or is it the song?

Urban legend has it that the highest number of people killed in a karaoke bar, are those killed while singing the song “My Way”. The general impression is that death comes to those who sing the song in such a bad way that rivals tend to send them of with a fiery salute, smash bottles on their head like a boat being cast into sea with a bottle of champagne, or with several slashes of a knife in lieu of maritime sabers. Those who love to talk about myths and legends tend to think that death comes to those who sing “My Way” because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Fact or fiction “My Way” and other Karaoke favorites will soon be the death of Filipinos whether a hundred or a handful because the Barangay elections will be under way. Unlike national elections that tend to be settled or paid for in cash, the Barangay elections will primarily be personal, petty and paid for with blood. Already there are reports of drive-by shootings and murders attributed to the coming barangay elections.

What worries me is that many lives will be lost because the COMELEC fails to ban the use of Karaoke machines for campaign purposes like they did the last time when they failed to consider the alarm and scandal or disturbance of the peace that “Campaign Karaoke on wheels” caused. Between the noise pollution, alarm and casualties, a simple order could save some lives. It is never petty when lives are concerned.

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A noisy Karaoke may be un-neighborly, but for me an act that is very un-neighborly is to cut-off or block off your neighbors right of way.

This is the impression that residents of Barrio Kapitolyo in Pasig now share after the City of Mandaluyong blocked the flow of vehicles from crossing across Pioneer Street along Sheridan several months back. Instead, vehicles are made to turn right towards Shaw Boulevard and then turn left on Williams St. then head back to Pioneer in a loop. For a while, people tried living with the idea, as enforcers turned a blind eye on drivers who cut across the local burger outlet to cross Pioneer St. into Sheridan. But recently that option has been blocked by a piece of string and a No-crossing sign.

This minor inconvenience would be acceptable if the Mayor of Mandaluyong actually did something to prepare the alternate route. Unfortunately, it seems the Mayor never even visited Williams St. or whatever it’s called, because the road is so full of holes it qualifies more as a farm to market road. In addition, the road is full of trucks lining up to load goods from warehouses along the street making the road too narrow for rush hour traffic. 

This oversight of course is not as bad as the failure of the Mayor of Pasig and the Barangay Captain of Kapitolyo to defend the right of way of residents. At the rate this is going, our progressive community will soon look and feel more like a hamlet as we get locked in by a rich gated community – Capitol 8 on one side, 2 exits closed down to traffic by the barangay on another, a neighboring city imposing its will on the third side and non-resident drivers using the barangay as short cut to avoid one intersection (which actually does not save time). Attention DILG Secretary Mar Roxas….

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There is a very interesting, educational and entertaining video on Youtube entitled: “Don’t Drive Here: Manila” which has been, or is supposed to be aired on Discovery Channel. The program features the driving realities in specific countries or cities and for added realism the program host actually undergoes theoretical and practical learning to better drive in the featured location.

Most of us living in the Philippines and driving in Metro Manila already know such realities so chances are we will simply be amused by the entire program which is never boring in its entirety. But PLEASE watch it twice. Amuse yourself the first time and then on the second time let it awaken your already numb senses to your responsibility as a driver, pedestrian, vehicle owner, citizen and tax payer.

As I watched “Don’t Drive Here: Manila”, it made me realize how much more effort we need to put into road safety, into vehicle design safety, how we need to badger government institutions to take responsibility for road safety, respect and regulation. As far as “Kanya-Kanya” mentality is concerned, the worst and biggest example of that would be in our roads, mobility and road safety.

The DOTC and its attached agencies should be on top of these but they have deteriorated into nothing more than collection agencies. For samplers: why has the DOTC allowed the enlargement of Jeepneys from the historical 12 seaters in the rear we refer to as “Animan” (6 on each side) and allowed them to become 20 to 24 seaters (10 to 12 on each side). They are technically trucks pretending to be jeepneys that now occupy more space on roads. Ever since World War 2, one criticism about the Jeepney design is that the front/driver seat is too cramped which is dangerous for the driver who literally needs to sit slightly sideways while driving? Why has the DOTC not done anything about this safety risk. In the event of an accident, the spare tire blocks the drivers exit!

In the tricycle design, these vehicles have now turned into instruments of pain and guaranteed multiple lacerations on impact. The tricycle has become smaller, more cramped, lower, often insuring a steady stream of patients for Orthopedic doctors and Hilots. The fact that women who are kidnapped by drug crazed tricycle drivers and cohorts can’t escape or be seen by the public tells us something is wrong.

Speaking of safety, the DOTC clearly doesn’t care about taxi passengers who are often asphyxiated by the body odor or bad breath of drivers because they can’t lower windows of cabs, because the operator or drivers remove them. This simple phenomenon is a serious safety issue but little things like this don’t seem to catch the attention of DOTC officials. By the way, whatever happened to the ban on driving in sandos, playing excessively loud music and smoking in jeepneys? Obviously we need to put back the pressure on the DOTC!!!

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