Commuter monologue

WHEN THEY said life is a long journey, I didn’t know I’d have to take it literally—and on a daily basis.

Aside from keeping alive at work, I guess one of the basic struggles one must endure is surviving the mayhem of commuting. As a city dweller, I start the day by braving the streets for a jeepney ride, occasional walks on vendor-occupied sidewalks, and, of course, enduring traffic. A long journey, indeed.

Just picture yourself: You woke up on the right side of your bed, bathed heartily, and sipped your brewed coffee while contemplating a good workday ahead. Your enthusiasm is going great, but then you decided to ruin your day by commuting to work. And that’s how your agony began.

On average, about four-five hours of our daily existence are spent on traveling. The rest of our precious minutes are devoted to, well, your life-friendly job. Imagine having a rough time commuting only to get scolded by your boss because you were late. Tough, isn’t it?

Needless to say, we have quite a huge problem in commuting here in Manila. A vast number of private vehicles, jeepneys and buses are conquering major roads and making toxic emissions. Buses swerve madly to pick up unnerved passengers who have no choice but to climb into that reckless, four-wheeled terror. Impatient passengers are stuck like forever in jeepneys, enduring the gridlock, the scorching heat, and the constant annoying honking of other jeepneys. The trains never fail to infuriate everyone with delays and broken A/C systems, which turn people into a mob of maddened sweaty zombies.

If I ever have to romanticize one’s commuting experience, I may say that commuting makes one closer to other people. By “closer,” I refer to its figurative and literal context. One gets close enough (sometimes too close!) to get to know someone else’s feelings about how messed up our system is, or how badly he or she had slept because of yesterday’s traffic madness.

Boarding a jam-packed train instantly transports you to a surreal dimension where personal space is nonexistent. People are hooked on their mobile devices as a way to escape awkward glances from other passengers whose faces are just an inch away from yours. The required skill is to stay balanced while avoiding getting smacked in the face in a sudden train stop.

Jeepney and bus commuters somehow share a different fate: They are exposed to dense smoke belched by motorists. The inconvenience brought by stagnant traffic is heightened by the chance of being victimized by crooks lurking to grab commuters’ necklaces, bracelets, purses and other personal belongings.

Definitely, the life of a commuter is drama itself, a long-running production that features the struggles of common Filipinos in the grip of imperfect urban planning. To think that we have role models to look up to: Singapore, Hong Kong, or Macau, whose success is not exactly new to us. What lacks essentially is the political will of a leader who will exercise the vision of improvement from start to end, and implement and sustain it.

It’ll be interesting to see who the leader that the May elections will produce, who can possibly end the commuting drama of ordinary Filipinos, someone wise enough who can make our long journey to our workplaces worthwhile, even idyllic.

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We just need the drive for change.

Mark Leilan Tanglao, 25, of Caloocan City, is a project consultant at Johnson & Johnson.