0171E: Everyday Madness In The Philippines

DERP DERP DERP!

So there was a robbery at SM North Edsa the other night. Since the robbers used store-bought hammers to break open the jewelry cases, the government's big suggestion for malls is not to sell hammers inside the mall. Let's ignore the fact that people can buy bats, wrenches, meat tenderizers and even umbrellas - all of which are sufficient to break glass provided the right force. Just focusing on hammers is stupid.

Oh yeah, and the President himself decided to show up at the scene of the crime. Oh yeah. Local robbery? Totally time for the national government to make its stupid presence felt.

A bus drove off the Skyway yesterday and killed at least 18 people. The lawyers for the bus company claims that this was just an isolated incident, but we all know that's a heap of baloney. This is not the first accident atributed to the bus company and pretty much inevitable given the privatized madness that is our mass transit "system". Once again in order to solely address symptoms of the problem instead of root causes, talks of speed limiting devices are back on the table. What we really need is to overhaul the whole thing, but of course too much money is invested in the current setup and I doubt things will change anytime soon.

And the Quezon City Council is discussing charging a fee for garbage collection. Brilliant. Do we talk about informal settlers and plans of getting them resettled somewhere else? Of course not - they may not generate much revenue, but they do offer votes. Just look at the madness in Manila where Quiapo street vendors violently demolished stalls being built for their use by the city government since they don't want to pay rent.

Seriously folks, as much as I love this country and have no immediate plans of migrating, sometimes I can't help but wonder why we stick around here.