Over the weekend, we had guests over for a lunch date. No surprise to us, my partner’s university friends from Holland, were for most part in awe of Davao City’s beauty and resources. Naturally for any Davawenyo, compliments like these, especially of one’s hometown always evoke a sense of pride that’s akin to showing one’s esteemed house guests your son’s medals or accomplishments.
However, in case you didn’t catch it, I, on purpose, inserted ‘for most part’ among the opening sentences. Our guests, consisting of a lovely young couple, their child of eight and the wife’s sister, while visiting our mountain resorts and even spending a day at the beach across the bay, did so for most part by renting a vehicle for them to get around in. It was here that harrowing tales about our notorious street jams and discourteous motorcycle riders who zigged and zagged through traffic followed, leaving a bad taste in contrast with their otherwise glowing impression of our place.
Of course, other residents will be wont to comment on such experience by outsiders with a take-it-or-leave sentiment, adding that onion-skinned visitors just ought to grin and bear whatever, when they are in a new place. The saying “when in Rome…” is always misused in cases like this because really, that’s just another side of the coin. It could also be that first impressions aren’t really all false impressions. We might let slide the first, which is monstrous traffic jams in certain parts of the city. That is the plague of other centers and metros as well and comments on this, without first sifting through the many reasons and dynamics involved, simply falls as dull and non-comprehensive, if at all.
On the second observation of motorcycle riders dangerously and irritatingly weaving in and out of other vehicles’ path on the road, this is one that seriously needs the local government’s attention. Never mind the growing volume of two-wheeled motor transports on the city’s roads. A former mayor once said, if these cheaper alternatives were all that the common citizens could afford in order to get around and also do business, why not? I recall one police report in one of our busier barangays, where it indicated that more than ninety percent of vehicular accidents always involved motorcycles. Even without this stat, it only takes one to observe the flow of vehicles in any part of the city to note that indeed, two-wheeled transports, most notably ridden by time-dictated delivery people, are potential dangers to both fellow motorists and pedestrians. A friend had once said, we should be glad what’s happening now in the city isn’t yet comparable to the chaos that presently haunts other countries like Vietnam. Lordy, that’s so typical of us; we have to wait for that to happen before we actually do something about something?
