Cabbies can help PH tourism campaign

Our tourism’s new signature campaign, dubbed “Visit the Philippines Year (VPY) 2015,” would really get traction (Opinion, 4/19/15) if our taxi drivers would be more honest toward the riding public.

Consider this: Recently, my wife took a taxi at SM Mall of Asia, and after telling the driver to proceed to a hotel along Roxas Boulevard, he responded by saying he didn’t know the place. Imagine, a big hotel in Roxas Boulevard unknown to a taxi driver!

One night, coming from another hotel in Ocampo (Vito Cruz) Street, the driver, after hearing me talk in Ilonggo to my wife, took several turns veering away from our hotel in Roxas Boulevard. Exasperated, I told the driver, “Huwag mo na kaming iligaw. Dugay na ko gabisita sa Manila.” (Stop giving us the detours. I’ve a long-time visitor to Manila.) The driver angrily shot back, “E, alam niyo pala, hindi kayo nagbibigay direksyon?” (So you know the way, and you didn’t give directions.)

Eerily, early the following morning while I was doing my walking exercise along the service road of Roxas Boulevard, a taxi sidled beside me and the driver asked for the location of a small hotel in Mabini Street. He had three elderly passengers who were unmistakably “probinsyano.” We were then near the intersections of Remedios Street and Roxas Boulevard with the taxi coming from the north, way past the location of the small hotel. It was obviously cruising around Ermita-Malate to “gain more mileage.”

If Filipino tourists are victimized by Manila taxi drivers, how much more foreign tourists? In my visits to other cities in Asia, I have not encountered dishonest drivers like those in Manila. Interestingly, in New York City, the city government in the early 2000s feted a Filipino taxi driver, Nestor Sulpico, for returning jewelry worth $78,000 left behind in his cab. Sulpico was awarded a scholarship in nursing at Columbia University.

Diri sa ginaubrahan ko sa Cagayan de Oro City, mabuot ya ang mga taxi drivers. Waay kapa kapamisok, ara kana dayon sa imo ginakadtuan. Bisita kamo diri sa (Where I work in Cagayan de Oro City, the taxi drivers are well-behaved. Before you can even blink, you’re at your destination. Come, visit the) Golden Friendship City!

—EDWARD B. CONTRERAS, edcontreras88@gmail.com