Penitence

I will be a hermit the next few days. That is how I learned to deal with the rigors of Holy Week.

The last time I ventured out of the city during this time of the year, I spent seven hours crawling down the NLEX coming home. Nada mas!

I have not come across any official estimate of the number of people who venture out on pilgrimages or holidays during this time of the year. To be sure, relying on public transport will be a test of endurance. The buses are full, the ports are clogged, the sea-going vessels are overloaded, the roads are crammed and the trains are, well, non-existent.

Venturing out has become a modern version of penitence: the willful absorption of physical pain to atone for sins. I no longer subscribe to the idea of testing my physical limits for faith or for pleasure. Age takes its toll.

In the vivid, vulgar and violent version of Iberian Catholicism we inherited, much joy is supposed to be found in accepting physical pain. This is why people ask to be nailed to crosses or beat their backs until bloodied. The enterprise is now being marketed as some sort of perverse tourist attraction.

Surviving as a resident of Metro Manila should be penitence enough. Riding the MRT a punishment. Moving through rush hour traffic is punishment. Enduring the stupidity of our politicians is punishment. Suffering the incompetence of our bureaucrats is punishment. No need to ask for more.

In China, at around the Lunar New Year, an estimated 400 million people go on an annual exodus, leaving the cities and heading for their home villages for reunions. It is the largest simultaneous movement of people. Yet somehow the Chinese mass transit system manages to deal with the crush without breaking down.

The Filipino equivalent is the Holy Week exodus, although on a much smaller scale. Each year, we seem to be moving closer to breakdown because of this.

This year will be particularly bad.

We have no trains out of the city to speak off.  The buses will likely take double the usual time for a trip because the roads are clogged. It is now impossible to buy plane tickets — and bad weather in the south has caused cancellations at the beginning of the week. There is no more space money can buy in the ships.

 Within the metropolitan area, the light rail service will be shut down for maintenance. Last Tuesday, the MRT demonstrated just how badly maintenance is needed by this facility: service was again interrupted by a loose piece of rail.

Edsa will be basically out of commission the next few days. Many parts of this vital highway will be excavated and repaved.

At any rate, there is nowhere to go to in the city during this time of the year. The malls are closed. There is no business done, no restaurants to try out. A certain gloom descends on the city this time.

Just to aggravate the sense of gloom, many parts of the metropolis will be waterless the next few days. There could be rotating blackouts, too. We are all likely to cross the threshold from the somber to the miserable.

Keep your gadgets fully charged. They will be our only windows to the rest of the universe.

This year, more than before, the “infrastructure gap” strikes us mercilessly. It is no longer just a vague phrase from the lexicon of economic planners.

All the inconvenience to be experienced the next few days will be magnified by the lack of road space, the inadequacy of mass transit services, the poor quality of our ports and airports, the fragility of our power supply and limitations of our fresh water sources.   

Over the last four years, the “infrastructure gap” widened rather than narrowed. Among the first acts of this administration was to cancel a French-assisted project to modernize our ports. The modernization of several airports was delayed. The rehab of NAIA has not happened.

When the tortured commuters of the MRT complained, one presidential spokesman told them to look for other means of transport.  The other presidential spokesman brushed off the complaints by saying this administration never promised them a “rose garden.”

At around that time, the two officials most responsible for this administration’s backlog in infra were seen politicking in the typhoon-ravaged areas, where one addressed the other “president” while distributing checks to battered communities. Remember them when while we suffer substandard airports, rotten ports, absent trains and unsafe buses.

It is amazing how our commuters suffer the incompetence of our transport officials with such patience, enduring the unwanted penitence stoically. In other countries, the gross cruelty inflicted on our commuters would have produced riots. Angry mobs might have found large nails to drive into the wrists of incompetent officials who indulge in politicking on the eve of the annual exodus from the cities.

Those, like me, who are not gifted with abundant patience, should better stay home. It is almost a patriotic option.

Venturing out will only aggravate the severe test this season brings to our crumbling infrastructure. Travelling at this time is a real hazard.

Stay home and imagine how nice it will be if we have an efficient rail system running down the archipelago’s spine, if we have nautical highways moving people and goods with less cost, and if we were led by people capable of looking to a beneficial future beyond their terms of office.