Our country, EDSA

The 23.8km stretch of road from Monumento in Caloocan to the Mall of Asia in Pasay can easily be likened to our country, from its conception until now.

The Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, commonly known as EDSA, is one of the most important roadways in the country because not only it connects most of the cities in Metro Manila, but it also is the meeting point for everyone due to a lot of commercial and residential establishments built near its vicinity.

But as I have said earlier, we can easily compare this road to our country. For example, the everyday Juan de la Cruz, the common people, can be represented by the cars that ply the roads of EDSA on a daily basis. They’re the ones who endure the longest parking lot that the Philippines have ever seen, slowly crawling their way from point A to point B. This can be likened the daily grind that most of the Filipinos must go through in order to survive. Both of them exert the same insane amounts of energy, time and effort not just to get by, but to survive.

Next up, we have the buses that bring commuters to their destinations. Yes they get their jobs done, but in a slow and, sometimes, unsafe way. The drivers hit the gas and make their buses fly at 60 kph even though the speed limit is just 40 and rush to get as much passengers just to make end’s meet, even if doing so will endanger the lives of the passengers on board, on other vehicles or even the pedestrians on the side.

We can compare them to the public and private individuals and organizations that prey on the everyday Juan de la Cruz. These “buses” of society will do anything just to get their own way. They have the power, contacts and influence to dictate on how the society should function and most of the time, they are the ones who cause the slow growth of our country, just like how the buses in EDSA cause most of the traffic on the daily basis. They will also steal their way to riches, just like the holdapers that ply their trade inside the buses, even to the point of killing you if you don’t submit to their will.

Then we have the Metro Rail Transit. The train itself provides commuters with a faster, and most of the time, safer option of getting from where you’re from to where you are going. We can easily compare the train to a lot of those who are in the higher echelons of society, the high rollers and many keyboard warriors of the Philippines. A lot of people want to be like them, perched on top of the societal food chain, riding the train calmly in the comfort of air-conditioning while the others wait in the heat of the sun for buses to ride on. They usually have a lot to say about what is happening in the country but don’t have the will to do what they say. They can easily spot where the traffic is building up but they’re usually moving faster than everyone else in life that they tend to just ignore and forget where the problem is.

And last but not the least, the government agencies that govern the whole of EDSA. And who are they to best represent but the Local and National Government that manages the country. They patch up and repair the roads with what seems to be of sub-standard quality work that is comparable to how our government is trying to patch up the problems of this country. They employ many short-term remedies to try and cover-up the real situation, which then will be replaced with another short-term and lacking solution when the man in charge is replaced. The cycle then goes on and on and nothing gets solved and some things actually worsen.

From what we see here, the country is really in a bad situation right now but there is still hope. If only the powers that be will provide a better and long-term solutions, if only they could decrease the amount of those “buses” that threaten the smaller “cars” and causes a lot of clogging up in our streets. If only they could actually fit more “commuters” onto the “MRT” then maybe we can see this country slowly start to experience real “growth” and the flow of lives of a lot of our countrymen will follow suit.