The other day, the writer Raissa Robles asked a curious question over Twitter. You can read it after the jump:
Strangely enough, on that same day, I was walking through one of the many streets of Paco, quite near the border of Ermita, and a stone’s throw from the Paco Park Cemetery. I was running some errands at the time, and I decided to mix it into my walking schedule.
You know how some vehicle owners who don’t have garages choose to park their cars indefinitely at the curb? Well, that ruins the walking experience for Manileños everywhere due to the fact that our sidewalks are often puny. But if you’ve gotta walk, you’ve gotta walk. So you take your walking experience away from the sidewalk, and into the street, making sure to hug the curb as much as the parked idiots cars would let you.
I was doing this very thing when I met The Idiot in the Mazda3. The black Mazda was parked in front of the Swiss Store across the Garden Plaza Hotel (different from the Old Swiss Inn; the Swiss Store is a great place for buying locally-made foreign sausages, if that makes any sense). As I was passing through the Swiss Store, the Mazda3 starts to slowly back its way out of the driveway.
I freeze, and then I backpedal out of the way of the car’s path. I was like knee-to-bumper close when he started backing up. It didn’t help that he was at the left side of the road, the left being my blind spot. I would have crossed through the Swiss Store (maybe dropped by to look through their wares) but the dude was blocking the driveway.
The Mazda3 slammed on the brakes just as I backed away. I shot the driver a dirty look, circled around the front, in order to make sure that I could see the plates completely and maybe memorize the number, and walked off in a huff. I mean, really, what else would you expect from rich kid drivers from the Philippines?
You’d think that was the end of that, but no. As I was making my way to the Paco fire station, the driver apparently re-parked his car, and once that was done, he would then get off the car and run after me. I don’t remember the exact conversation, but the dude was basically out to get me for eyeing his plate number. He was saying something like, “Hey man, I don’t care if you can’t see or what, but what the hell were you looking at my car’s plates for?”
What I did was I placated him, apologized, and said that I was just a bit unnerved by the incident. Which made me feel like a tool, since what I should have done was kick his head to the curb until all of his teeth were down his throat. Granting that I was probably wrong for looking at their plate for something that was partially my fault – I wasn’t on the sidewalk, if you recall – the man was being unreasonable for somebody who had nearly run over a pedestrian. And he didn’t even apologize, making it sound like it was my fault completely, when he was the one who wasn’t looking where he was driving.
I don’t know how to drive. I’ve never driven in my life, so I don’t know what it’s like to be behind the wheel. But I maintain that the driver has a bigger responsibility than the pedestrian when he’s on the road, and drivers who act like they’re bigger than the pedestrian should have his throat removed. With a knife.
So Ms. Robles, the answer to your question: the reason why there hasn’t been any poll-related deaths in the US while elections in the Philippines are incomplete without them is this: the rich and powerful of our country are full of violent, insensitive, idiotic, and self-entitled brats like the moron in the Mazda3, and they should all be publicly shot.