This may be an exercise in futility, but I reckon a personal blog is as good a venue as any to air out my grievances, however useless they may seem at this point.
I would like to complain about the worsening traffic situation in Metro Manila, specifically along Commonwealth Avenue going to QC Circle. I know, I know, hundreds, maybe thousands, of motorists simply shrug their shoulders, doze off (if they're on a public vehicle), send text messages, fix their hair, pray the rosary, prepare for their work day, and find other ways to while away the precious time that is used up while stuck on the road.
I was going to send this via Citizens' Watch of the Philippine Daily Inquirer but I could not get a good shot of the traffic jam with my cellphone while avoiding getting side-swiped by drivers who refuse to stick to their lanes. On a side note, a Nissan Sentra drove too close for comfort one day and caused my right side mirror to flap close. The good driver then nosed his way onto the space before me, oblivious to what he had just done. Sigh.
I am a tiny voice in a world used to inconveniences such as this. Still, I refuse to go quietly into the night.
Six years ago, I started driving to work. Before that, I was an MRT enthusiast. The law office I worked at was located in Pasig then and it only took me 45 minutes each morning to get to work. Since June of this year when I started going to another office in Pasig, I noticed that it took me two hours to ply the same route.
Two hours, mother? What about our other duties?
The MMDA started digging along the rightmost lane of the portion of Commonwealth from PSSC up to the former Paskong Pasiklab, before Philcoa, about a month ago, and it made our lives hell. For some reason, that construction site had affected the whole of Commonwealth up to Fairview. It didn't matter if we left our houses an our earlier than usual, the result was the same. Commonwealth always looked like a parking lot in the morning.
I could not just groan and bear it any longer. If the city government, or MMDA, or other entities responsible for that construction site could read this blog somehow, I would like you to know how terribly inconvenienced a whole lot of people are because traffic is not properly managed along that area. Surely, with some coordination among proper authorities and a little careful planning, we could avoid this traffic jam. Please do something about it.
There was even one payday Friday when, on my way to work, aside from the usual crawl along Commonwealth, I saw three road accidents, Meralco doing repairs and using up one lane along Quezon Ave. thus affecting traffic along Elliptical Road, and MMDA cutting trees in the same area. By the time I got to the office, I was already late for my meeting and utterly out of patience.
I admit that I'm not a very patient person. I still get upset when my flights get delayed, for which my friends chide me, especially at night when I worry for my safety alone in a taxicab. Somewhere in this traffic experience, I know I should learn the lessons that so many others seem to handle well. It's just that I'm going back to the corporate world after two years as a full-time mission worker.
Things like these don't exactly welcome me back to the real world with open arms.
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