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People keep saying to me that I should write about
the traffic in Metro Manila, but I’ve written about that already
and in any event there are volumes of comment on the Metro Manila
traffic situation, which is truly grabe. There is however a link
between the Metro Manila traffic situation and the way in which many
people seem to spend their time around here. I would contend that if
people did some things differently, then there would be a lot less
traffic on the roads and rather than talking about the need for new
roads in Metro Manila, there would be a concentration on doing
things in ways which would be less wasteful of their time—back to
basics.
Take the case of the broken down
aircon unit. Call the repairman, he comes, he looks, he tells you
what he thinks the problem is and what it would take to fix it, and
you decide to have the repair carried out. He returns, he takes the
unit to pieces only to find that either he needs a tool which he
doesn’t have with him or he needs a part that he didn’t think
about earlier—he disappears and tries to locate the part, then
returns to tell you that he can’t find one— “out of stock”
!!! Or that the tool he needs is in Nueva Ecija. He goes away and
then comes back on another day, when he is probably not expected and
there is no money there with which to pay him—saying—he goes
away again and comes back another day, hopefully with the right
parts and tools and when there is someone available to pay him. All
that makes for 5 return journeys to the place at which the aircon
unit is broken down—2 journeys would have been adequate, or if he
had been really well equipped with a full set of tools and a set of
typical spare parts he may even have fixed it in a single
journey—and the aircon would have been working much quicker!!! As
if this is not enough, people make journeys from one side of Metro
Manila to the other at the drop of a hat—in the aircon case the
repair man could well have been traveling between Alabang and
Navotas.
I have been told that 60 percent
of letters put into the Philippine postal service never reach their
intended destination, and those that do are frequently several
months in the process. Of course, without a postal service there is
a need to go to places to collect or deliver things, another major
contributor to congestion on the roads, exacerbated by the number of
disparate delivery and courier services that are some people’s
answer to the non-existent postal service.
But it seems that above these
anecdotes is a mindset issue that not only accepts the need to be
rushing hither and thither but actually thrives on it even though
the means of transportation is usually uncomfortable, and journeys
take a very long time. People still don’t stop traveling around
and appear to think nothing, or at best very little, about the
wasted time and the numbing experience—I wonder why ? Must be
another facet of the Filipino proclivity for acceptance of things
being as they are. I always seem to find myself in a rush
(over-commitment of time I guess), being stuck in the nightmarish
traffic of Metro Manila is something that I would go out of my way
to avoid, or at least mitigate as much as possible. I can’t
believe that Filipinos enjoy the experience of frequent traveling
around Metro Manila—isn’t it time that somebody had a look at
the reasons behind there being so much journey time on the roads?
The economic cost of time wasted in traffic hold ups must be
enormous, perhaps some of the government money being spent on
building new roads could be more effectively used in establishing an
efficient postal service, di ba???
Mike can be contacted at
mawootton@gmail.com
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