Driving Hell

I may sound like a really broken record here but driving in our country really sucks especially of course in our dear capital, the infamous streets of Metro Manila.

As I type this and all of a sudden, a traffic enforcer with ninja powers came out of nowhere and starts giving me a violation ticket due to complaining about the traffic situation through blogging, here are some things I really, really hate in the roads of Manila.

Jeepney headlights set to off at night
I just recently noticed that many jeepneys traveling at night, and I mean many them, had their headlights off and speeding blindly in the dark. I remember almost hitting a jeep when I was attempting to change lanes and all of a sudden, a  jeep with a switched off headlight swoosh to my lane, complete with the patented angry honking. I asked this to a forum and a guy said the reason many jeepneys doing this is to make their slightly lit route signage attached to their windshield visible at night….. that’s stupid.

Swerving Delight
Filipino drivers just love to insert themselves on every possible space, even swerving drastically from one lane to another, sometimes jumping from one lane to 3 lanes. If you are a sane person, changing lanes is simply checking the lane you are about to switch, use signal lights and change lanes if there is no threat. Here, as usual, it will never work and many times it will lead to collisions and more headaches.

Driving on the line, not in the lane
97% of time, I am always in the middle of the lane. in between the designated right marks. If the road has 4 lanes it should stay that way but a lot of drivers placing their vehicles in the middle of road lines and not being in between the white lines, the 4 lanes became 6 lanes, traffic galore. As expected, as long there is a space in the road, the idiots will insert their vehicles in inappropriate areas, which results to more traffic.

U Turn slots and concrete barriers in inappropriate areas
No wonder there are a lot of news of vehicles getting wrecked by concrete barriers with bad reflectors. Driving with care is still the best way to get yourself safe from point A to B but having dangerous obstacles like concrete barriers placed in areas that most likely to get you car turned into a metal pancake is not really a good idea. Almost a lot of them has reflectors that degraded horribly due to poor maintenance and you cannot easily spot them at afar  especially at night and if you are not really familiar with the place. Bam you just hit a concrete barrier.

Deny Changing Lane Lovers
Some Filipino drivers just want it all. Like when you attempt to change lane after ensuring that there is no immediate vehicle, a faraway car from that lane will suddenly accelerate and block your lane, the only thing missing is to give you a douchebaggery smile. It happened to me many times especially at that accident haven called EDSA. It’s like the driver is a hybrid of Slimer and Lex Luthor, wherein the driver just want it all and the concept of road courtesy thrown out of the window.

Lets head on shall we
Counter flowing is encourage if there is no absolutely oncoming vehicles on the opposite lane. Not here in our country, just like what I said, if there is space, even in the opposite lanes, our dear fellow drivers will be in their speed orgasm trance state again, and speeds up to the opposite lane and dodge incoming cars while honking indiscriminately in joy. They do this to cut the travel time, but really, its making you cut your life faster.

Road courtesy is not existent
Major roads in Manila is chaotic packed with dangerous drivers and accident magnet road obstacles, driving around here is really hell. A lot of them does not follow road rules and I doubt they know what some road sign means.

If you are fast driver, you will be most likely be killed in an accident, and if you are slow one, you will also be mostly killed in a horrible accident. Its like dog eat dog world out there, everyone wants to reach their destination as fast as possible, even if it leads to more accidents.

As other say, if you can survive while driving around the Metro you will not have any problems driving anywhere in the world. There are a lot of delinquent and very unqualified drivers, mostly in public vehicles, tearing up the streets while having experiencing speed orgasm at the same time. We got a number of traffic reducing schemes with great premise but sadly fails in implementation. Lastly, don’t forget about poor road conditions that plagued a lot of our major roads that leads more disaster and sadly,  unnecessary deaths.

Combining them all and we got the recipe of driving hell.

SWAT: Sugod (Attack), Wait, Atras (Retreat), Tago (Hide)

While at work yesterday I read the news about a disgruntled cop taking a tourist bus loaded with Chinese tourists hostage and all he wanted is to have his old job back with benefits. The cop’s dismissal is full of controversy but that is another story. The big story is how our local authorities  handled the situation and sadly, they blundered miserably resulting to unnecessary fatalities.

High risk situations like hostage taking needs proper management from ground commander and using the SWAT team as last resort to fix things. Still, our local SWAT, now christened with many names because of their lackluster performance probably created the situation worse. The ground commander also did a very poor performance and there are many times you want to hit the guy with a frying pan.

SWAT, if we used the fighting game term, the finishing move in a hostage situation, the greatest solution to end a crisis and hopefully save the lives of the hostages. That particular SWAT unit failed to do the job properly and botched many times which lead to more deaths.

Here are some craptastic things made by the ground commander, the on the scene police, the ill-equipped SWAT unit and the scoop hungry media during the crisis infused with obvious observation, rants and common sense analysis of yours truly, even if I am not a trained SWAT operative.

Uzis, thousands of them
After the last gun shot was heard and the smoke cleared, the once emptied street, suddenly a wave of Uzis or usiseros or to our non-Tagalog speaking readers, bunch of curious onlookers starts swarming towards the scene of the crime with their cellphone camera aiming to take at least a picture of the dead body later upload the image while giggling to his Facebook account. From the start, the police didn’t cordoned the area to prevent unwanted civilians frolicking around the premises.

We got tear gas! where is my gas mask?
What the hell? a SWAT unit that lacks important equipment, like a gas mask. They have other items to distract the suspect like a tear gas yet they don’t have protection like a gas mask to cover themselves from the effects of it. I think I only saw 1 guy wearing a gas mask and the rest of the assault team cover their faces with a wet clothe.

SWAT Attack! Panic mode! Go Back!
Even they have body armor in their body and highly trained in dealing with in your face scenarios, they scrambled like a frightened pack of mice, running away from the bus when the suspect starts shooting indiscriminately inside. They should push through with the assault and stop the firing. If they can’t do it stay by the side of the bus, just let the sniper do his job.

Making a big fuss about the news is my orgasm maker
Media is our direct link between the news and us. But they need be very vigilant and be conscious of all things they broadcast, especially the kind that can endanger other lives. If the situation is already high risk and to help the assault team to conduct a sweep job, the media must start an owned news blackout. Of course, they can continue recording the fiasco without actual broadcasting it live and just show it on TV after the incident. Also, the media made a big mistake of mentioning the positions of police officers even the snipers on national TV. The suspect is most likely receiving all the news via the bus in-house television.

And god damn it, stop presenting the news in an exaggerated manner as if you are having a fanciful orgasm. I find it funny that one of the most popular self-imposed tough guys on news who loves to finger point things became a coward when a whirl of bullets almost got hit him.

The official MPD SWAT breaching items, a big sledgehammer and a piece of rope
I thought a standard SWAT unit, as shown in TV, has an effective breaching material like a plastic explosive. But during the “assault” they don’t have an explosive item to destroy the front door but they have a huge ass sledgehammer. The bus glass windows is still too tough for the hammer enabling the suspect to do more damage inside. The hammer plan did not work and probably one of the police remembers an old 80s cartoon and concoct a plan to tie the bus door with a piece of rope and be pulled by a car. As expected, the planned did not work and the suspect can easily shoot more hostages inside

If they have at least a plastic explosive and a set of gas masks, they can place it by the door, windshield and the other back door, detonate it, throw a flash grenade or a tear gas, go inside with a gas mask on and neutralize the suspect and hopefully not kill him. Speaking of back door.

Emergency door says hello
The emergency door, firmly placed near the back of the bus and designed for real emergency purposes, is right there under their noses. They are having a hard time destroying the glass windows that can withstand a big amount of force yet the door is only a few meters, even inches away from them. The emergency door can easily be accessed from outside and even if the door does not respond immediately, at least that door is more manageable to open than the other one.

The arresting of his brother, things go sour
Everything and everyone was calm the day but when the suspect’s brother and his family starts getting the over sensationalized attention of the media and the cops drags him in forceful way is probably and I am 90% sure the main breaking point of the suspect. Before that he set a 5 minute deadline to resolve the arrest of his brother but only 3 minutes have passed when he starts killing hostages.

Both police and media is responsible for his final outburst. For the police, improper arrest to the suspects brother and the only thing missing is to hit the brother with a baseball bat to the head to calm him down, and the media, broadcasting a sensitive image to the world wherein the suspect can see as well. The suspect is reportedly kind with the hostages but when the police dragged his brother away and shown by our friendly media, his attitude turned destructive.

No more element of surprise tactic
SWAT, recruited and trained to take down the enemy as fast as possible and hopefully not kill the suspect. That MPD SWAT last night already had their element of surprise tactic no longer surprising for the suspect since he already knows the positions of SWAT members even the snipers thanks to our great media person. With all the delays and failed tactics, the suspect is probably face palming himself in shame for his fellow officers and continues his reign of terror inside.

With all that craptastic performances of our local law enforcement, the trust rating for them is now plummeting to the extreme. The blood bath aftermath is clear that everyone involved with the negotiations and assault must undergo refreshing training and hopefully the next time another the same kind of crisis happen, the law enforcers and those select few horrible SWAT unit can step up to their game and save lives.

Driving in Manila… Again

The last time I took the wheel was back in 2004, heading home after from an exhibit we had in Greenbelt. Afterwards, laziness took away my driving enthusiasm and prefers to be a passenger or commute rather to bring a car. Fast forward in 2009, I managed to get my rusty driving skills back after 2 weeks of extensive retraining of basic driving, from being alert from assholes of the road to finding the knob to open the gas tank.

Before, I only drive to few places, mostly in short distances and not even in daily basis. They say if you can drive in Metro Manila flawlessly, you can drive anywhere in the world and I agree with that statement because Metro Manila has a lot of dangerous drivers, and of course, a lot of money hungry enforcers.

Since September I always drive to work, from Las Piñas to Makati, and the area I loathed the most is the Rotonda of EDSA extension, the one near the MRT Taft Station. Even if the area is only 1/8 of Ayala Avenue, you will always encounter all the assholery of these public vehicle drivers. Whenever I commute to work via an FX, I mostly sleep all the way to Makati and not minding the assholery done by those public vehicle drivers. Buses, the god damn buses, they have fetish to insert themselves even if it is only less than a meter of space, and they spew blacker than a black gulaman smoke. Taxis, the god damn taxis, those taxi drivers probably doesn’t know how to use the signal light and wants to swerve to someone’s lane even if you have a chance to have a collision with each other. Lot of taxis has their battle hardened look displayed on their bodies, which consists of scratches, bumps, cracks, cracked windows and more scratches. They feel they are invincible despite of having a lot of evident body damages but all I can say is… you are all shit. Tricycles, the goddamn tricycles, there should not be in the main road, and just like their bus counterparts, they have intense fetish of putting themselves in places that have 99% of getting the driver, and his passengers killed. I mostly commute from the most part of my life and I just realize how horrible those drivers are, and I am not even mentioning the EDSA beyond Makati.

But in the end, being “trained” under the EDSA conditions, I can consider myself a “good” driver, still there are a lot of things I still need to learn, and one of the major lessons I learned is how to spot and deal with legit and asshole tow guys.

Early December, after work and buying gifts from Glorietta, me and Rein head home, and when we reached near the MRT Magallanes station, I noticed the lights at the dashboard, including the headlights were getting dimmer, and in few seconds, the car died. I just let the remaining momentum of the vehicle reached its final halt. When it finally stopped we were near the U-turn slot below the MRT Magallanes station in front the Southgate mall.

When I am about to call my father (who is in MOA at that time) for help and assistance, all of a sudden a tow truck came (with the plate number NVF847) out from nowhere, some guys step down, I think they were around 7 or 8. One of them approached me by the window and asked what happened. I said the battery probably died and all of a sudden, some of the guys start installing their towing chains on the car and I told them to stop immediately.

The guy told me the car needs to be impounded near Ultra, and I was required to pay 4,500 to have the car back, he sounds like your typical cash obsessed asshole I asked him if they can pull us up to the Petron station near Blue Wave, he said it will be 2,500. I asked for any proof of receipts, they couldn’t provide one. I checked the markings of the tow truck and all I see is the number 78. Then my awesome dad called on my phone. He then talked to one the main guys and told them to wait for him. After the phone call, they immediately released the chains thing from the vehicle. Then another around 5 minutes of waiting, the main guy approached me again and said they are being called back in the office, so they left… hurriedly, probably hitting a 80kph in 5 seconds.

A few minutes passed by, another fresh tow truck arrived, complete with legit markings, and 5 men with IDs. They approached me by the window and talked the situation. He said they never put the chain tow thing unless authorized by the owner. He also said they mostly bring impounded vehicles in Ultra if it is in a violation or had an accident and vehicular breakdown is a different story. You can obtain your impounded car, in which the price you have to be pay reflects on the original cause of being impounded in the first place.

My dad arrived, talked to the new guys. Then few minutes later, they agree to pull the car all the way to Las Piñas for 2,000 pesos. They attached the chain tow thing, then in less than an hour. We are already in front of our house. We pay them 2000; we received a receipt, with complete information of the towing company. Rein and I also gave them individual 100 pesos for the effort, can also consider as a Christmas gift for them.

At home, we finally learned both the alternator and the car battery died. We got them fixed in the next few days, yet, whenever I drive that car, I feel the vehicle will died out again due to more vibrations and shakings. I am no car expert but I feel the newly repaired car has few mileages left and will meet its end in a year or two.

Now back in the road again, I think I should stop working in Makati and head back working in the south, preferably in Alabang or Las Pinas. Lesser gas consumption means more earnings.