Object of envy

I JUST came back from Jakarta which I found to be very different the last time I was there in 1980 and 1988. Although the streets are now crawling with cars and traffic is still a long way from the ideal, the place no doubt can legitimately boast of marked improvements that would fill Filipinos like me with envy and sorrow for our own country.

I was there for 12 days using a Blue Bird taxi and a few other vehicles for my trips. Not a single driver asked me to guide him to our destination; not a single one looked and smelled like he needed a bath; and not a single car made me feel like it was ready to fall apart. All were clean and well-maintained.

And the public toilets in hospitals, malls and restaurants, in every place I went to, were clean—with the most efficient and the latest, modern designs. I was told that there’s a separate company that maintains the toilets.

In contrast, in some of the best places in the Philippines, one has to pay P10—that is, if you don’t have a membership card—to use a toilet whose stink fills the corridors. And the toilet is usually maintained by the establishment itself. Worst of all, the “handicapped” are simply “ignored.”

What kind of people are we that we tolerate rundown taxis and rude cab drivers who are not only holdup men but also rapists, whose body odor offends the nostrils, and who have to be guided so a passenger can get to his/her destination? What kind of people are we that we don’t mind paying for the use of dirty, stinky toilets? And what kind of people are we that we don’t question the officials who owe it to us to ensure that taxis and cab drivers that are dangerous to citizens’ wellbeing are forever kept out of our streets, and toilets that are health hazards, aside from being revolting to the senses of sight and smell, are made forever extinct?

Not just a few times have we heard complaints about these ugly Philippine realities being aired in our newspapers or discussed on radio or TV, but have we seen any effort coming from those concerned to improve things for the benefit of the general public? I pity the poor Filipino!

—SHIRLEY WILSON DE LAS ALAS,

shirley.dellasalas@gmail.com