Traffic monstrosity killing Metro Manila residents slowly

There was a time when going places meant you either walked or drove or took the public transport. But life has become so complicated nowadays that each option is not without risks. The drawback to walking has remained the same forever—it’s slow, exhausting and not at all enjoyable unless your name is Samuel Belibet. Driving and taking the public transport, on the other hand, reflect the depth we have fallen into the hole we dug for ourselves by rushing into urbanization at the expense of clear-headed foresight and planning.

The result is this traffic catastrophe that has taken over the streets, which one angry blogger described as the jail sentence that never passed trial, victimizing the innocent. Come to think of it: Traffic takes chunks of time from this one and only life that we have. By the estimate of that blogger, time spent commuting adds up to 11 years for the average Metro Manila resident in terms of the waiting time that one is condemned to endure during traffic gridlocks. The price we pay for this mess is enormous.

God knows how many missed flights and appointments have driven people to contemplate suicide, how many blossoming romances have been nipped in the bud because love-struck casanova missed a date and jealous princess suspected he was having an affair. How many perspiring office workers have stalled and slept through the gridlock only to hear the words “you are fired” upon arriving at the workplace seven hours late? How many big deals and grand ambitions went up in smoke? How many mortal diseases have developed in otherwise healthy people from repeated instances of feeling stressed out, overwhelmed by anxiety because traffic wouldn’t move for God knows how long, while full bladders are threatening to burst and blood pressures are shooting up through the roof?

I would even dare say that this traffic monstrosity feeds on not only the living but even on the unborn and the dead. Babies are coming out before reaching the hospital because traffic would not give the ambulances carrying pregnant mothers an inch to move, let alone reach the delivery room before the coming of labor day. I’ve seen funerals threaten to last until, maybe, judgment day or the day of resurrection itself because the hearse bearing the cadaver is stuck in traffic while angry commuters curse at the poor dead fellow for taking them along in the whole pathetic misery of his final dying ritual.

This traffic catastrophe is slowly killing me.—ADEL ABILLAR, [email protected]