Traffic in the Torrents

I did mention that I was in Manila more than a week ago and I did experience Andaya Highway firsthand. I did notice something else. There’s something strange about the weather we have here at home. I’m not sure if it’s with the entire Bicol Region or it’s just with Camarines Sur. The weather was fair in Manila. It was your typically tropical sunny. I don’t remember it raining hard there. It was pretty much the same as we drove through the Tagalog provinces, especially through Quezon which takes a lengthy part of the drive. When we entered Cam Sur, it became cloudy. When we reached Pamplona, it was already drizzling. The whole week that followed was one of heavy downpour. I attended a training seminar in a high-end hotel, did my Christmas shopping, went to Christmas parties and another training, all in the backdrop of heavy torrential rains. I’m getting tired of wearing this thick jacket. But it has become part of my daily get-up.

My sisters, brothers, niece and nephew spent a week-long vacation in Palawan; and they tell me that the weather is perfect there. They went swimming, island hopping and snorkeling in the sunny, shiny rainless skies of the western Philippines. I’m not being envious. But, haven’t we had enough of Kristine and Pepito and everything that came in between? As a testament to this wet weather, the small articles of clothing (underwear, socks, handkerchiefs) which I washed on Sunday had not dried until Thursday. I had to dry them indoors, because, of course, they would only get all the wetter if I tried to hang them outdoors. I know that the last months of the year are the rainy season, but the past week’s rains did not seemed to have any plans of stopping.

In a quick google search, it turns out that all Bicol provinces share in a PAGASA general flood advisory of potential flash floods due to moderate to heavy rainfall triggered by the shear line, an area where cold and warm air meet. Can’t these two meet somewhere else? Gratefully, there have not been any reports of major flash floods.

As if the wicked weather has not been enough of an inconvenience, here goes the torture of public transport. The best hope of refuge from these torrents is to go home. But, just as I hail an empty tricycle, it goes speeding past. One slows down, but driver quickly yells that he’s not taking fare anymore. Another one comes by with space for one more passenger. But driver refuses. He must have some dislike against my destination. More empty tricycles pass by without stopping. I look around and there’s a crowd of us, all ride rejects. Are these drivers driving for a living or merely joyriding?

I don’t know which is worse, moving traffic in which you can’t get a ride or standstill traffic in which you can get a ride. In another part of the city, jeepneys and other vehicles are slow moving, and tricycles avoid getting near that road altogether. In other towns, a diversion road is supposed to have smoother, faster traffic. It’s supposed to divert vehicular traffic from downtown, so that transport from town to town could be easier. But around here, they made a commercial district out of the diversion road that it has way more traffic than downtown. I don’t resent the progress. It’s nice that people have a selection of malls to shop at. Of course, they offer jobs. That’s good for the economy. But, look at the price. Cars from Milaor and beyond have to go to pass at a turtle’s pace to go to Pili and beyond or Canaman and beyond. But then again, I’ll take that over unemployment on any day of the year.

But for the meantime, I’m stuck on the side of the road, wet with rain water and still being rejected by passing drivers. I guess, we have to wait for some councilor or agency head to propose and implement a scheme for public transport passengers to take a ride to get home more conveniently. There has to be a better way than this. We’ll wait for that while also waiting for the Andaya Highway to get better, or some other solution to make the trip from and to Manila a lot quicker. Remember my family that I said spent some time in Palawan. They arrived a few days ago to spend Christmas here. They got home at around 2 in the afternoon, after leaving Manila at around 10:20 the last night, with tickets that said they should have left at around 8:30. That’s a 15 hour bus ride, about the same length of time of flight from Manila to New York. They could have traveled to the other side of the world in that same span of time; and that’s already a better experience .

After trudging through traffic and torrents, we would eventually get home. Merry Christmas.

““Drip down, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds pour down righteousness;” Isaiah 45:8