‘We seek out ways to go around the rules, but are mighty mad when others do it!’
OF late, I have been sensitive to yellow boxes at intersections.
This recent sensitivity was provoked one afternoon when driving out of McKinley Road, I was stuck at the EDSA intersection, unable to cross because buses and cars heading north towards Cubao were blocking the EDSA McKinley intersection. And no horn honking by any of us unable to cross could move the cars and buses blocking our way.
We shouldn’t have been forced to honk our horns. There was a reason for the yellow box painted at the intersection of EDSA-Ayala-McKinley road. But motorists ignore the box.
And get away with it.
That’s actually the problem of the Philippines. People — the high and the mighty as well as we the lowly — are able to ignore (if not in fact defy) procedures, processes, regulations and laws — and get away with it.
This culture is symbolized, for example, by motorists who switch on their hazard lights when they want to do something they’re not supposed to do, like drive down a one-way street, park where no parking is allowed, and counterflow during traffic jams. It is also exemplified by the “Di mo ba ako kilala?” attitude and our penchant for name-dropping when convenient.
We all look for “kakilala” in government offices to help speed things up; we look for fray brods and sorority sisters and for ninongs and ninangs to get us out of hot water. We seek out ways to go around the rules, but are mighty mad when others do it!
But the simplest thing would be to just follow. If, for example, no motorist would cross an intersection unless he is sure that he can cross without being stopped inside the yellow boxes, traffic everywhere would improve considerably all over the metropolis. Of course, if a motorist chooses to defy this, it would help if the consequences of such defiance would be certain — and severe!
Even within the highly-touted Bonifacio Global City, the yellow boxes are painted everywhere but defied. Oh — and so are pedestrian lanes!
So, if in what is supposed to be the best planned, albeit artificial, community in the Philippines today these little things cannot be observed or enforced, how much more in the rest of the country, yes?
Perhaps BGC should take the lead in making a big thing out of these “little things!”
