‘… which gave me a chance to have a good look at the many posters and streamers that are already dotting our streets, posters and streamers carrying the image and names of them who will soon be wooing us again…’
YESTERDAY, I took a quick drive back to my father’s hometown of Alaminos (Laguna) to check on his old house that I am now in charge of. I left Makati at 9:30 a.m. and the drive covering a distance of about 75 kilometers took me just 70 minutes, a quick drive that I didn’t expect. Not only was the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) relatively traffic-free (everyone seemed to have gone up to Tagaytay by the time I drove down the SLEX, and even the usual congestion at Sto. Tomas, Batangas in that area where the Padre Pio National Shrine is housed was nowhere to be found).
So it was a breeze — what I usually experience when I travel early in the morning or late at night — or what it was at the height of the pandemic when you couldn’t move across “state lines,” so to speak, without having some sort of pass from the IATF that lets you through the many checkpoints along the way. Despite those checkpoints, you could actually cover the 75 kilometers in under 50 minutes, of course by over-speeding down the highway — as
I did a couple of times.
Well, okay, not just a couple.
However, there are several reasons that could slow you down while traversing the Pan-Philippine Highway from the Sto. Tomas Southern Tagalog Arterial Road (STAR) Tollway exit. One of them electricity posts right smack in the middle of a newly paved highway lane, a death trap because the Department of Public Works and Highways did not (and does not!) coordinate with the utility companies to move them. So, especially at night, when driving down roads you are unfamiliar with, beware of newly-widened highways.
Another was the usual pedestrian crossing whenever and wherever they felt like it, this being “the province.” Sometimes, you’ll be surprised that they are standing still in the middle of the highway, having crossed half of the way but unable to continue due to oncoming traffic. At night this can be a heck of a problem because our streets are on many stretches darker than hell: and if the pedestrian happens to be wearing dark-colored clothes you as a motorist may not be aware that they’re there until you’re so close you could see the whites of their eyes!
But the third cause is seasonal. And ‘tis the season for it. I refer to the road constructions that now dot the length of the highway from Sto. Tomas to San Pablo — and surely beyond that. I refer to these public works as seasonal, because they happen very often when the election season looms. And looming it is, with October 1 being the deadline for the filing of candidacy and May 2025 being the month of the elections.
So you’ll see road construction all over the country. In part to give the incumbents “proof of life” projects they could point to as evidence that they did something for their constituents.
But is it also true that one good reason for this is to share a commission between contractors and those in power? Asking for a friend.
So yes, the road from Sto. Tomas to Alaminos, and from Alaminos to San Pablo (where I had brunch at Casa San Pablo!) is dotted with roadwork, narrowing two lanes to one and causing bottlenecks. Luckily, it was a Sunday and I was traveling close to lunchtime, so traffic was a bit light.
Nevertheless, I had to throttle down from 60 to 40 and at times 20 kph as needed — which gave me a chance to have a good look at the many posters and streamers that are already dotting our streets, posters and streamers carrying the image and names of them who will soon be wooing us again for our all-important votes.
Telltale signs indeed.
