MEDIUM RARE
Unbelievable, times three!
You thought a Pulse Asia rating of 91% and 92% approval of the President in terms of trust and job performance was too good to be true?
Phenomenal, until, some days later Pulse Asia reveals another 92% score, this time for the government’s efforts to manage the transmission of COVID-19. A parallel survey finds 84% approval of the government’s anti-COVID response.
Well, well, well. Let the President’s minions in DOTr, LTFRB, MMDA listen to commuters and bus passengers open up with anger and pain to complain about the disservice called public transportation. As if those beep cards costing P180 plus-plus did not give them enough grief, here comes a new Station of the Cross in a never-ending series of bus rerouting on EDSA. An exhausted garments worker said it all: “What kind of rules that change every day? We are forced to go down by the bus driver because of rerouting. We walk two or more kilometers to get to the next bus stop. Is this how to treat us? We pay your salaries, you who behave like rich people out to abuse poor people. Budget, budget, they talk about a budget but none of it ever comes to us!”
Her daily journey from Quezon City to Quiapo is never a walk in the park. On top of the hours of walking, waiting, and more walking she has to suffer the heat of the sun or the misery of getting wet in the rain, to jostle for a seat – does anyone worry about physical distancing anymore? – only to be told that what she did yesterday does not apply today. Take those beep cards, P180 one day, free the next, in-between which no one selling them or accepting them seems to know what to do. The rules keep changing, that’s why.
How do the authorities respond? They play volleyball, tossing the ball over the net from one agency to another, with faces so straight you want to slam the ball into their forehead, cheeks, and nose. The public waited five months for a ride! Somebody invent a game – darts? -- to take the people’s frustrations out on those self-righteous tormentors, before the outrage turns into one big uncontrollable wave, a rampage.