Archive for the ‘In Traffic’
Taxi Tale of the Week (TTOW)
This time the taxi driver wasn’t interested in chatting with us. He was listening to Relasyon, the very useful legal advice show on Radyo Singko hosted by Luchie Cruz Valdes and Mel Sta. Maria.
The first caller identified himself as a taxi driver. He was on the “boundary” system, he said, and he wanted to know how he could pay his taxes without documentation. “P****g ina mo!” the cabbie screamed at the radio. From the violence of his reaction we’re guessing he doesn’t pay taxes.
Next up was an old lady who was crying because she’d been swindled of her retirement money. This time the cabbie shook his head and chuckled. “Ang tanda-tanda mo na, nagpapaloko ka pa!” he chortled.
We paid him the exact amount on the meter, marveling at how lucky we were that our acquaintance with him lasted only ten minutes.
Leonardo Da Vinci was my cabbie
There have been too many references to Taxi Driver, so here’s a taxi scene from another movie. That’s Chris Cornell and Audioslave in the background.
Our column Emotional Weather Report appears every Sunday in the Philippine Star.
One Saturday afternoon a month ago I took a taxi outside the UP Shopping Center.
“Sa Makati po,” I told the driver.
“Do you have a UP ID?” he asked.
“No.” I mean I had one when I was a student, obviously, but I don’t have a current university ID.
“We’ll have to take Garcia Avenue then,” he said. He was a burly man who looked to be in his 50s. Do you remember Bomber Moran?
“But you went to UP,” he went on and I nodded. I regretted not having earbuds on as a conversation deterrent. Talking to cabbies is always instructive but there is the risk of arguments, yelling, and stuff that leads to cars fusing with lampposts.
“May I ask what you majored in?” (Our conversation was in Tagalog by the way, I’m just saving myself the translation work.) I said Literature.
“I’m here to consult with a professor friend of mine,” he announced. “I’m an inventor, you see.” I congratulated him, for I have a great admiration for inventors. “I’ve invented a process that reduces vehicular emissions.”
I said this was important work and that he should have his invention patented. “That’s not a problem,” he boomed, “I am a mechanical engineer. We’re working on the requirements.”
“Good luck,” I said, hoping this was the end of our chat because I wanted to listen to music. “Don’t get ripped off by evil corporations.”
“I don’t care about the money,” he declared, “I’m doing it for humanity.”
The theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey started playing in my head. “I knew someone who was helping inventors get patents,” he continued. “My friend had found a way to save fuel by using a mixture of gasoline and water. But not a hybrid engine.”
“That’s great,” I noted, “as long as the engine doesn’t explode.”
“No, he solved that problem,” the driver said. “It takes a long time to get the engine started though, about an hour.”
Wonderful for emergencies, said my thought balloon. He went into a long and detailed story about how that guy had actually swindled other inventors but his friend got his patent safely. “Karma,” he concluded.
“That was quick,” I said.
“Yes, karma strikes fast. I’m a cancer survivor, you know. My friend cured me. He taught me how to beat the cancer. I was working in Japan when I was diagnosed; I thought I was a goner. Resigned to my fate, I gave away all my possessions. That’s when my friend showed me the cure. Now I help others to overcome the illness.”
An inventor and a medical genius. Leonardo Da Vinci was my cabbie.
“Do you have bad eyesight?” he asked me. This did not require genius—I was wearing glasses.
“Nearsighted,” I said.
“What grade?”
“High.”
“Would you like laser surgery?”
“No.”
“That’s what I thought until I had the surgery and now my vision is perfect,” the driver declared. “You mustn’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid, I love glasses,” I said. This confused him. “They’re part of my work,” I explained. “I work in…fashion.” Not exactly true but not entirely a falsehood.
“I kept sitting on my glasses,” the driver went on.
“I keep them on my face, not my ass,” I told him, obviously omitting the last part. Blast this traffic, I was late for my late lunch.
“I prayed to the lord to give me a girlfriend,” the driver went on. “I’m single, see, but I want to have ten children. I asked God for a beautiful girlfriend. A kind girlfriend.”
Obviously he wasn’t referring to me. “And he answered my prayers!” he cried, like a game show host unveiling a kitchen showcase. He took a framed photo from the dashboard and handed it to me.
“Don’t you think she’s pretty?” I nodded with all the enthusiasm I could muster.
“The other girl in the picture is her twin sister. I didn’t know she had a twin!”
“Good then, you’ll get your ten kids in no time.”
“We became close when she almost drowned during typhoon Sendong,” he recounted. Why do strangers feel compelled to tell me their life stories? It’s not as if I seem sympathetic. “She called me, crying for help. Her house was flooded, the water was rising. ‘Help me!’ she was screaming, then we got cut off. She drowned.”
An inventor, a medical genius and a protagonist in a tragic romance.
“Drowned?” I echoed.
“I didn’t think she’d survive. Lucky her mother found her. They didn’t have a good relationship, they were fighting all the time. But the experience brought them closer together. They are closer now than they’ve ever been.”
Not a tragic romance, good for him. “I’m getting out there, by the coffee shop,” I said.
“Don’t leave your smartphone in the cab, I’ve collected so many from my passengers!” he warned me, cheerfully.
“Keep the change!” I said as I ran away.
Art doesn’t have to be pretty but it must be true.
The Boysen KNOxOUT Project: EDSA mural by Tapio Snellman, Aurora Underpass, Quezon City.
No glowing sunsets. No rustic nipa huts and grazing carabao. No flowers in full technicolor bloom or children splashing about in amazingly unpolluted rivers or women carrying baskets of fruit. Just the chaos, the clangor and the rush of the city we hate and love in equal parts. THIS is the Metro Manila we live in. It may not be beautiful enough for you, but to us it’s home.
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Good to know that you like the mural by Jose Tence Ruiz on the San Lorenzo Wall. Here’s a composite.
You hate it when you see yourself
Korean cat in Seoul cafe, June 2011. Photo by JZ.
We were in a taxi when the driver pointed to some Koreans coming out of a restaurant. “Mga Koreyano,” he growled. “Magugulang ang mga yan.” (Koreans are deceitful.)
“Bakit naman ho?” (Why do you say that?) we asked.
“Gusto akong dayain,” he replied. “Ihatid ko daw siya sa Laguna, tapos ime-metro? Hindi puede yon.” (One tried to cheat me. He said, Take me to Laguna but turn on the meter. That’s not right.)
We don’t know how taxis charge to drive passengers outside Metro Manila, so we assumed the kontrata system was in effect (They agree on a rate at the start of the trip).
“Magulang ang mga yan,” he repeated.
“Baka ho nagkataon lang,” we said. “Yung mga Koreyano ho sa Seoul mabait naman.” (Maybe it was just that guy. The Koreans we met in Seoul were quite nice.) The first time we tried to use the ticket machine at a Korean train station we must’ve looked so bewildered that someone came over to offer help. As he spoke no English we conversed in signs.)
“Hindi, madaya sila,” the cabbie insisted.
When we got to our destination the meter read 68 pesos. We didn’t have the exact change so we handed over 100 pesos.
“Wala akong barya,” he said peremptorily, showing a roll of P100 bills.
“Meron ho kayong P50?” We had a P20 peso bill.
“Wala, wala talaga.” What he meant was that we should give him the P100 and consider the change his tip.
We weren’t about to give this unpleasant man a P32 tip. A 47 percent gratuity, are we insane?
Fortunately we had a lot of loose change. We gave him the P20 bill and exactly P48 in 5 and 1-peso coins.
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Thank you for the advice. Unlike you forward-thinking types we do not carry P68 in 25-centavo coins at all times, as they would tend to jangle.
However, in the dark days of martial law, some lawyers would pay their activist-clients’ bail in 25-centavo coins in order to tick off the authorities.
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