Sandbag solutions

I remember a TV sitcom that ended a few years ago; one of the characters criticized his son for using the sugar packet solution—to place a packet of sugar under the foot of a table to stop it from wobbling—instead of trying to fix the real problem of the table.

The show was funny and light, but then again, it makes you think about our tendency to go for easy solutions, totally forgetting the real problem. The wobbly table is the perfect example; we usually just hold onto a side of the table to avoid any spills.

This sugar packet solution paradigm could be applied to almost everything that we experience or see.

Just look at the roads; anyone who drives through or walks on our roads is conscious enough to realize that our roads are crying for improvement. The potholes, probably one of the worst enemies of low or lowered cars, are “temporarily” filled with sand bags or some other substandard material to make an easy fix.

Why can’t they just fix the road properly? Is our country so corrupt that we do not have a budget to fix the smallest pothole in our city streets? Why can’t the barangay captains do anything about it? Who should be held responsible?

We don’t really know because we tend to blame the wrong people; I’ve heard people complain about our roads and curse the President. But even if we do find the ones who are truly responsible (which is unlikely), would pigs suddenly fly, and fix everything that needs fixing?

It has come to me that we adore temporary solutions and abhore fixing them; maybe this almost always is the reason for our fifth world country roads.

But our taxes have to go somewhere, right? Take for example the DPWH; I have in occassions praised them for going the extra mile, for closing a part of the road for repairs to make it more convenient for the motorists in the “near” future.

I recall one instance when the Buendia Bridge was supposedly closed for “renovations;” it ended in worse shape with worse bumps and holes that have forced many motorists to swerve all of a sudden, inviting accidents.

The complaints rained after only a few weeks of the so-called “improved” bridge; the government pointed to their contractor as the entity at fault. Eventually the contractor agreed to fix it properly, and now it is what they promised it to be—this is where your taxes go. This is where I saw the true potential of our taxes.
Now this might sound a bit over the line, but the effects of not solving these problems could also affect the environment.

Believe it or not, depressing the brake pedal of your car wastes more gas than stepping on the actual gas pedal. Imagine going around 60 to 80 kph on the road, and then you suddenly realize that the road is uneven. You immediately step on the brake—this is where your lunch money for additional gas goes. Moreover, this would unnecessarily add to air pollution.

This is what we get because we always remove an important variable in a very easy equation—consistency. Take Roxas Blvd. as an example; it was ravaged by a typhoon and hit with massive floods. To make sure that the incident does not happen again, the LGUs sent trucks to collect the garbage from Manila Bay. It worked, for a while, until they decided to stop operations for some reason. Perhaps they did not have the budget for it.

But that’s highly unlikely; people pay taxes every day. Maybe people like reminiscing about Manila’s former glory rather than restoring it, let alone making it better.

If we could do something really good once, I do not see a reason why we could not do it again. It all really comes down to our perception of “small” problems.