I was about to write something more “profound” for today’s issue, after a break that took me to Caraga right after ogling the “sights” of Binibining Cebu where I was privileged to be one of the judges.
But then I read an article in the Inquirer yesterday about a 20-year-old UST Fine Arts student who walked recently from Sampaloc in Manila to his family’s home in Fairview, Quezon City. That was a journey of some 20 kilometers, but Mico Taberdo did it for a school project, in the process documenting it on a video blog which has since gone viral.
It brought back memories of my elementary school days, when together with a classmate or two, I would sometimes walk from Letran in Intramuros all the way to Dimasalang in Sampaloc, where we lived. Or times when we walked shorter distances, from school to Quiapo Church, where it was easier to take a ride in a jeepney to Sampaloc because of trip-cutting by the “kings of the road”. Or when we would go to the Escolta or Avenida to watch a blockbuster movie and skip classes. Those were the days.
A better era to which the millennials of today can no longer relate. Surely most of my co-writers in these two pages can.
But those were infinitely better days, when Metro Manila was much less congested, and when sidewalks were unimpeded (well, mostly) by vendors or other obstacles. To be fair, even the few sidewalk vendors along the Avenida or Quezon Boulevard would keep to their designated spaces. There was no cutthroat competition, so you knew where and who to get some special wares which were cheaper than those sold in the department stores.
Young Mico succeeded in focusing attention from something sorely missing in the metropolis, a social commentary on how “un-walkable” our mega-cities have descended into.
Google told him it would take four and a half hours. Well, it took him nine hours, in the process having to suffer air pollution and of course the heat, plus zig-zagging through obstacles in sidewalks narrowed by building owners, and braving the possibility of falling into open pits left by construction workers or being bitten by stray dogs.
“I was really forced to get off the sidewalk and use the road instead because of the parked cars and construction work”, the young man related. He also took note of ramps for the disabled blocked by of all things, electric posts.
I live in what was once a genteel district of Manila, where one could walk in cool fashion past La Salle to watch a basketball game at the Rizal Memorial Stadium, and beyond there to Harrison Plaza, a once toney place now gone to seed.
These days I dread even driving there, especially on a rainy night, lest I bump a pedestrian using the streets because of cars which have blocked the narrowed sidewalks. Cars owned by the rich students of La Salle and St. Benilde, parked for them willy-nilly by barangay attendants making an extra buck, or parking collectors of the city government.
They park on both sides of Leon Guinto St., mind you, even if there are fading signs that say “No Parking.”
For the longest time, I thought there were laws or ordinances that decreed two to three-meter wide sidewalks for pedestrians to walk upon on each side of the street. And yet, even an “elite” school, St. Scholastica’s, where President Cory and Senator Risa studied, violate this. Along the entire stretch of P. Ocampo, which we still call Vito Cruz, the nuns who run the school have fenced off their property all the way to the street, forcing the “hoi polloi” to walk in the street, imperiled by cars which have to skirt off jeepneys whose drivers wait for passengers right in the middle of the street. Meters away, incidentally, is a police station.
A distinguished friend, architect and urban planner Jun Palafox lamented how efforts to make NCR more “pedestrian-friendly have been moving at a snail pace over the last 40 years.”
Frankly, I have never observed any effort at all, except during the short period when Bayani Fernando as MMDA chair forcibly cleared the sidewalks despite the howls of vendors who cried “naghahanap-buhay lang kami,” editorialized by television newsreaders with a hint of pity.
A friend of mine once posted on his Facebook page a proposal to get government to construct an overhead walk-way cum bicycle lane along the stretch of Edsa to supplement the over-crowded MRT. Made a lot of sense, but no one picked the idea. The MMDA even denied that the sidewalks were impassable.
Indeed, it would be more convenient for one to walk, if it was at all possible, from the Ortigas corner of Edsa to Shaw, or from Guadalupe to Buendia, rather than line up for hours to get an MRT ride. Quezon Avenue to Cubao even. Or bike from North Avenue all the way to work in Makati, IF it was at all possible without getting killed or injured.
Where I am work-assigned now, people do this all the time, even if there is little traffic, and public transport is excellent. But in the Philippines, particularly in our Metro-Manila, where public transport is a nightmare, even walking, or biking, is proscribed by the negligence of government.
Conceivably, you can walk or bike comfortably from Taguig to the front of Manila Bay, if only government had the imagination and the will to do it.
Figure it in your mind. Start at BGC which could have been a well-planned community with wide boulevards and parks until the Ayalas and Camposes allowed the construction of so many buildings (well…profit, naturalmente). Traverse from there through Forbes Park and Dasmarinas, enclaves of the super-elite, IF government could impose right-of-way upon their fringes, and into Ecology Village, where a creek begins.
The waterway, which is beyond the commerce of man, and is “owned” by the Republic, flows past Magallanes Village into the Tripa de Maricaban upon Malibay, thence through the vicinity of Naia into Baclaran, and voila, MOA!
Certainly doable.
Let’s listen to UST’s Mico Taberdo (good thing he is not taking up law and thus beyond being attracted to join a fraternity of “officers of the court”): “I initially thought of the children who would cross mountains and rivers just to attend school. (Yet) now I feel a stronger connection with those who have such daily struggles.”
He added: “I think many were able to relate to the video because, at a certain point, all of us thought about our daily commute and asked, what if I just walk home?”
Why not, indeed?