A month ago, a new mall and grocery that could very easily compete with those other similar establishments in the city in terms of modernity and content, opened near us. As such, our tiny piece of suburbia, nearly an hour’s drive away from the city, has never been more complete. Never mind if the downtown area is still where the majority of modern movie houses are located. As it is, nearly all that we will ever need is, as they say, within arm’s reach now, and that is all that matters. There are online movies anyway.
Almost twenty-two years ago, my mom (bless her soul) said she could not figure out why we chose to relocate so far away. During those years, it was literally as if we had transferred high up in the mountains. Also around that time, I too had begun to ask myself the same question. This was because during one incident, while on our way to inspect our house-to-be, the tricycle that was supposed to bring us there got stuck going up the still-unpaved and inclined road. In order to reach the top, the men in our group still had to alight and push the old thing. Even as my partner tried to allay my fears, I thought this incident shouldn’t be a regular occurrence if we were to reside in the subdivision where we are now.
At least, that discomfort didn’t really last. Year after year, the roads’ condition began to improve; asphalted at first and then cemented later, although a portion at a time. when it was finally completed, the installation of street lights, as part of the city’s modernization of its barangays, had already reached us, so that what my mate had assured me then had become true.
In all these many years, things had actually turned for the better. Just before the pandemic, a much-needed bus route began serving our barangay, with our subdivision and the Ateneo University located downtown as the starting and final stops. This meant that public transports to the city need not be limited anymore to just jeepneys or taxis for commuters who didn’t have private vehicles. In the real sense, for many among us here who had felt that we were living along the fringes of civilization, so to speak, with third-rate services and all, change had finally reached us.
In the fear that this may be misconstrued as a self-serving observation, I think that everyone, and that means every tax-paying member of society should feel that they only deserve all that is due them, no more, less. With the new year and all that go with it, the ruckus and clamor for services that we aim at government, will only be justified if we likewise do our share in being part of that development we push for. Whine and moan, along with a culture of blame will naturally be done away with as we become this.
