JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Have you seen those tarpaulins attached to the pillars under the MRT? The ones with the portrait of MMDA Chair Bayani Fernando looking sternly at the motorists? Is this supposed to be a deterrent to traffic violations? Will Manila’s drivers observe traffic rules and regulations because an authority figure/bureaucrat/father substitute is standing there in a barong tagalog glowering at them? Is this anywhere as effective as, say, knowing that if you break the rules you will certainly get caught and penalized, and that if you get pulled over it’s for a real, actual violation?

Note the words printed at the bottom of the tarp: “Mere possession of this sign is punishable by law”. Meaning the MMDA is aware that these reminders for motorists will likely be stolen. So maybe there should be a second tarp of Mr Fernando glaring at the culprits who intend to steal these signs. These tarps are government property. They belong to the people. Stealing is wrong. But then you’d have to put signs everywhere to remind thieves that what they’re doing is bad, and then. . .

Meanwhile, there are bumper stickers saying Erap 2010. Oy, the theory of eternal recurrence. We can’t even say “Now I’ve heard everything”, because we already said it years ago.

If you take Daang Hari going south towards Cavite, past the subdivisions called Versailles and Portofino (Are we in Europe yet?), you will notice to your left a structure that resembles a Victorian glass chapel. It’s sort of like Kew Gardens, and sort of like Oscar’s obsession in Oscar and Lucinda? Have you seen that? Is it someone’s house? A conservatory? Anyone know what it is?

Spotted on the side of a van:

“____massage.ph
Calming the whole nation!
Strictly massage only!
God can see you!”

My friend Zed is sitting in a van crawling through traffic. It’s two in the afternoon of a hot day so naturally the airconditioner conks out, and after 10 minutes of breathing the same air, she opens the window. Along comes a little sampaguita vendor, a girl who looks about 12 (though she’s probably older). She waves the sampaguita garlands at the window and says, “Lady, buy sampaguita, very cheap.”

“No thanks,” Zed says. “Please, lady, I really need the money,” the kid says in a monotone. Zed shakes her head. “Just one, so I can have something to eat,” the kid goes on. Zed shakes her head. “Come on, can’t you buy just one?” the kid repeats in her unchanging monotone. “No,” Zed says.

Then the kid takes one garland and throws it into the open window, where it lands on Zed’s lap. “There,” the kid says, “That’s my gift to you.”

Zed tosses the garland back out the window and the kid catches it. (Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, Zed says, but it was instinct.) “No, thank you,” Zed says. The kid tosses it back at her. “Take it, it’s a gift.” Zed tosses it back, the kid tosses it in, Zed tosses it back, it’s becoming absurd. Finally Zed takes out her wallet. “Let me pay for that one,” she says. She hands the kid a ten-peso coin. The kid throws it back into the van. “You can keep it,” the kid says. They resume playing catch with the sampaguita.

Finally the sampaguita vendor moves away from the van and goes over to the sidewalk. She takes her garlands of sampaguita and starts whipping them against a concrete wall.

Translated by me, the captive audience in the taxi
“See that billboard? Is that (well-known showbiz personality we probably shouldn’t name)? I used to work for her. I was her driver for a year. Balasubas yan. No, I got paid alright, but the yelling and cursing! She would scream and cuss at me. In front of other people. Celebrities! (He proceeds to name all the famous people who witnessed his being berated by famous employer. Public humiliation is bad enough, but to be humiliated in front of celebrities!) She would call me to bring the car around and if I wasn’t there in five minutes she would scream like a madwoman. What if there was heavy traffic?! You know, her boobs are fake. They’re made of silicone. And her legs are ugly, they’re veiny. She’s big now but her fame won’t last because she’s not nice. You never heard such cursing! And from someone with an education! Well, not really. She’s a college undergraduate! (The horror!) I saw her resumé when she enrolled her kid in school. (You have to present your resumé to your kid’s school?! I’ve heard that you have to show your marriage certificate to prove that your child is legitimate, and that many Catholic schools don’t accept the children of single/separated/divorced parents—so much for kindness, charity, etc—but now they have to see your CV?! “We regret that we cannot accept your child as a student. You lack twelve units of Serbo-Croat, your background in Uzbek literature is a little sketchy, and since your masteral thesis disproving the Yang-Mills equation is incomplete, you do not have the necessary qualifications to be a parent at our school.”) Mark my words, her career won’t last. She bought this house and lot for over 20 million pesos, but that’s going to burn. (Was that a threat of arson? Should I have written down his name and license number?) The old stars, they were good to their staff. Dolphy, Susan Roces, Nova Villa. . .Yeah, I’ve been driving a cab for a long time, and sometimes I work as a private driver. I worked in the Middle East, too. I was a heavy equipment operator. Now the pay in the Middle East is too low. The Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis were accepting less pay, so the salaries went down. Ay, heavy traffic. It’s because there’s classes today.”