At every go, it’s so common nowadays to hear people smirk and mutter, it’s “Christmas time once again, expect to be hopelessly stuck the middle of Davao’s monstrous traffic jams. To be caught dead on the tracks seems to be the more accurate term. One time, at nearly twelve midnight, as I left the resto bar where we had a gig and ventured out into the street, the scene that unfolded before me eerily resembled that of one from the movie, Twilight Zone. As far as I could see, vehicles of all types, with headlights on, appeared frozen in the middle of the street, as though they have suddenly decided to intentionally parked there for the night.
Now standing by the side of the road, it was a sight to behold indeed; not a car horn could be heard even in the distance and except for the sound of idling engines, all was deathly quiet. Strangely enough, the people inside the cars and the jeepneys too, looked more like dolls, with most of them just looking straight ahead and appearing almost motionless.
Done with your Christmas shopping? I was at first tempted to shout out loud. But taunting them seemed like a sick idea; imagine being stuck inside those jeepneys full of people, with all your packages of gifts and groceries on your lap or at your feet, and nearly everyone in the cramped cabin lugging the same things. Surely I thought, most of these people must have still come from work then headed straight to wherever, to do their shopping. Have they even had their dinner yet?
Meanwhile, I spy inside those gleaming SUVs, behind tinted windows, indifferent pale faces illuminated only by the screens of their phones, sitting comfy with the AC on, and content with the thought their load is safely tucked in the trunk of their machines. Imagine the trunk space on this one, the leg space on that van and lastly the seating capacity of that car behind … check!
Alas, for a brief moment, this pathetic and stagnant road scene, bedecked with a cast of both the cramped and the comfortable, with a majority carrying each their own baggage borne of toil, distinctly polarized and different, yet all ironically headed in one direction… doesn’t that make one ponder even for just a teeny weeny bit, is this a smaller version of our country situation at the moment?
