We can all be everyday heroes, in our own small way: If we refrain from throwing out food wrappers from the windows of our vehicles when no one is looking or into the nearest canal and sewers on the streets, when there should be small receptacles for garbage in our vehicle; if we don’t take advantage of anyone, or pay our taxes dutifully; if we write, speak out against bad governance when we see it.
Heroism need not be as profound as that of Rizal or Bonifacio. But the problem that stymies us often from being good citizens is the deafness and callousness we see in some government bureaucrats. One broadcaster has said that in this country, when you are caught violating traffic rules, you are declared guilty and fined, unless proven influential. Where do ordinary citizens find redress for grievances when elections are already over? It cannot be in the vile exchanges of garbage and toilet-type expletives hurled on social media. There must be some decent ways of exercising responsible citizenry in this country.
I wrote to city hall a month ago on a wanton waste of tax money. Other than asking me what it was and where it’s happening, I got no further reply of any further action taken or not taken, or if not their concern, to what agency of government should I “spill my bile.” Being a longtime senior resident of the city, I thought I deserved a decent reply of wanting to know where my taxes go. This is that simple problem I was concerned with.
Fifty meters away from the intersection of Commonwealth Avenue and the Sandiganbayan building, right to the Batasang Pambansa compound, a new set of traffic lights were installed more than five years ago to control the intersecting traffic additionally coming from a subdivision. The traffic lights never worked since day one. But no one seems to know how to fix a simple electrical problem for the last five years, or why nobody even wanted to just switch them off! The lights keep irritatingly blinking 24/7 and, to my calculation, are wasting electricity and taxes of P1,000 a day, roughly P400,000 a year, or P2 million for five years!
We can be encouraged to be everyday heroes—if our government bureaucrats show the way.
MARVEL K. TAN,
marvelktan@yahoo.com