Bottom feeders delight!!!

Too much of a good thing can be bad and I now see how having too many restaurants along East Capitol drive in Barrio Kapitolyo can turn our canals and gutters into the stinkiest, putrid and unattractive health hazard for what many people call a food haven.

After being over run by dozens and dozens of restaurants and food outlets, Barrio Kapitolyo quickly earned a reputation for a fast evolving food place in Metro Manila, unfortunately nobody seems to be paying attention to the negative impact of unregulated commercialization. The first negative impact was parking and has now deteriorated into a situation where watch your car boys and parking attendants have made up the rules on how cars should park.

As a result many cars no longer park parallel to the curb or gutter but perpendicular thereby eating up more than one lane and shrinking the road to a tight 1.5 lane. The bigger problem is that this type of illegal parking actually increased hazards to residents and pedestrians.

Then came the problem of garbage bags being left in front of restaurants when they close late at night of early morning. With no guards and no personnel, the garbage is left on the street so garbage trucks can pick it up. But unlike in regulated commercial districts, the garbage is not left inside secured heavy-duty trashcans or dumpsters.

So the abundant numbers of stray cats and dogs around Barrio Kapitolyo feast on left overs, followed by rats and cockroaches. More food equals more breeding pests and rodents as well as more dog shit to step on as you walk around the food haven everybody is raving about!

But it doesn’t end there. Try walking around the area especially in the morning when “fresh meat, poultry and produce” are delivered in plastic bags or open containers so that flies and critters can have their feast before you do. I’ve even seen the meat dumped on the asphalt in front of a service entrance where kitchen sewage was flowing out to the street and curbside. All this gives new meaning to the term Dining Al Fresco!

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 “What change can I make and control on my own regardless of others”?

A lot of people have been posting and forwarding the belief or the idea that if this country is going to breakthrough the change has to start from each of us. Some people refer to it as “Ground Swell” or building from the bottom up. The problem is they “Like” the idea but are not impressed enough to do it.

The first challenge to such an idea is that many if not most people especially Filipinos want to do big things, to bring immediate or noticeable change or to make an impact. Like I told someone recently, we tend to want to do things that are at par with our level of education, professional title, social or economic status in life. Many people want to be the boss, the Pastor, or the Lead singer, but not many people are confident and secure enough in who and what they are to be comfortable at being an usher, help pick-up or clean up garbage or paint a wall. Leaders fail because they don’t seek or ask others to learn a real need that they could solve individually or as group.

We think that by doing small things and making small changes, we won’t really make an impact and it would be a waste of our time as well as professional skills or experience. Many folks also feel that when you do small or simple things, people won’t notice and things won’t change. The question is are you doing it to be noticed or to cause change? People repaint or renovate their homes to create change, a better feel, and a better look, not necessarily to be noticed. We love the compliments but the bottom line is we want “a good and welcomed change.”

The many unknown individuals who post videos of corrupt traffic enforcers, drug crazed or arrogant cabbies, of abusive government officials in private vehicles violating traffic rules, or beasts beating up.

Defenseless women, children and animals, have made a collective difference by doing something one by one! If “I-sumbong mo kay Tulfo” or “Topgear” has established themselves as the guardians against bad behavior as well as the enforcers of public humiliation, it is not by intent but as a consequence of what pissed off “Little people” have caught on camera and passed on to the Tulfo brothers and Topgear.

In many residential areas in the Philippines, housemaids or houseboys who come from the province have brought with them the “habit” of cleaning in front of the house. You don’t necessarily need to tell them or require them, they do so because that is what they saw and know growing up. As so, their individual sense of responsibility or duty has collectively resulted in cleaner front yards. The only time this is ruined is when local governments bring in street sweepers for purposes of job creation and patronage politics. Small things done in numbers create a big difference that we often take for granted.

The other problem that stops people from initiating ground swell is our habitual or default mentality of following tradition or not wanting to act differently. Are all those “Medical Missions” done as part of corporate CSR truly the answer and do you really need to go to remote areas, introduce certain level of challenges and difficulties in order for your actions to be significant? What if 30 participants simply shelled out enough money to employ a field worker, or a nutritionist or nurse to be assigned to the area and supply the necessary materials?

One well trained technician, medic, teacher or missionary with enough supplies, financially supported by a dozen weekend volunteers would have greater long-term impact. I wrote in a column in 2015 how P3,000 a month helped support a campus missionary to be on site for hundreds of kids who needed help, advise, counsel or comforting 24/7. Yes it’s small but the impact on the lives of students is significant.

Significance is about impact.

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