I see these poignant prayers on Twitter every now and then. “God willing it won’t be traffic [sic] on Edsa today”. I’m pretty sure such prayers are uttered at least once per 1.3 person per day by the average EDSA motorist. That translates to hundreds of thousands of such prayer said each year in beseeching the Lord to lend his divine hand in the easing of traffic decongestion along Metro Manila’s premier land artery.
“For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” – Matthew 18:20
You’d think there would be some results to speak of given such a promise categorically spelt out in the Holy Bible. Certainly the collective prayers of hundreds of thousands of Metro Manila motorists more than meets this simple criteria.
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Such is the hopelessness in the plight of even the most well-heeled among Metro Manila residents. No amount of leather upholstery stretched across the interior of a fancy German automobile could ease the wretchedness of being stuck for two hours in an EDSA traffic jam. Traffic is the great Filipino equalizer — a beast that chomps up up to four hours of the average Manileño’s waking hours, easily. That’s four hours per day that can never be brought back. Twenty five percent of an incomprehsnsible number of sapient beings’ precious hours of lucidity wastes away on the steamy pavement of EDSA every day.
Mantakin mo yan.
Hardly surprising then that God is the default being to which such a hopeless lot turn to. And no less than the top honcho of the Philippines’ premier metropolis has reportedly done just that — though not to ease EDSA’s infernal congestion, but to make it “safer”…
Riding on one of the MMDA’s green open-top pickup trucks, MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino and Fr. Roderick Castro, parish priest at the Guadalupe Church in Makati, sprinkled holy water along the northbound lane of EDSA on Friday morni[n]g starting from Magallanes in Makati to Balintawak in Quezon City.
Another MMDA convoy, led by General Manager Corazon Jimenez and another priest, sprinkled holy water on the southbound lane of Edsa at the same time.
Tolentino noted that since EDSA, orginally known as Highway 54, was built in the 1940s, the road, now a backbone of Metro Manila traffic, has not been blessed entirely.
It’s a shame these bozos had not included traffic congestion in the small print of their “blessings”. Perhaps the Filipino’s Roman Catholic god is particular about credentials and would turn the bigger of his infinite ears to the mutterings of his loyal men of the cloth. Suffice to say, the millions of voices coming from despairing motorists that have slogged through EDSA over the decades certainly weren’t enough to move the Lord to apply his kind graces.
Then again the forlorn hopelessness evident in the manner with which Our Lady of Edsa stares down at the automotive cesspool that EDSA had become may have rubbed off on her son. The solution to EDSA’s mess is quite obvious. But to Filipinos who are renowned for an inherent inability to think in terms of systems and, as such, are utterly incapable of implementing systemic solutions, EDSA is just one of those things that they are content to grudgingly live with.
Contrary to popular belief, EDSA is not a monument to that “revoution” Filipinos imagine had happened on its seething pavement back in 1986. The fact is, EDSA’s more enduring role in Philippine society is as a reminder of how consistent failure had become synonymous to “the Philippines” — not much different from the ironic way the 12th of June 1898 has been marked by Filipinos as the start of their on-going celebration of an epic failure to defend their sovereignty.
Fortunately, Filipinos can rest assured that they are “blessed” in their god’s eyes. Because they say so.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Maybe they can bless all that water in the Marikina River basin so it won’t ever flood again and kill all good Filipino Catholics in Manila.
Or better yet, they could bless the eastern portion of Philippine Area of Responsibility so typhoons won’t ever come here again.
Seriously; I thought Rome was bad, Philippine Catholic mentality is worse.
They got it all wrong. Exorcise the bus drivers. They drive like a bat outta hell.
Might just as well sacrifice a hundred new-born babies.
I can almost hear God say “F**k you! Your mess, you clean it up!”
Part of me wants to laugh if a crash happens on the same spot the Holy Water was sprinkled on.
Saw this on the NEWS this morning. Me thinks EDSA doesn’t need this holy water blessing crap…what effin’ good will that do to the perennial traffic congestion??
Why is there no plans of a subway line which would definitely cut back on traffic I will never know.
The subway idea would be the best thing ever for Manila but it’ll never happen, Manila doesn’t even have a sewer system. @ MidwayHaven, I will almost agree with you on the Philippine Catholic mentality is worse idea but the Romans were absolutely brutal in their conquests, actually they were totally fucking evil. They used religion in an attempt to conquer the world, Philippine Catholics can’t even conquer their colonized mentality.
Or skyway system. Manila always floods, you know.
The blessing was not done to eliminate the traffic. It was done for the many accidents that have happened recently and for some lives lost and scores injured.
Why paint a bad color on such a good intention: praying for those hurt in the accidents and reminding the drivers to drive in godly manner?
The greatest evil is to attribute evil to soothing that is good and well intentioned.
The Church already apologized to Galileo, last time I checked.
Translation- wala kong magagawa except to waste time instead of solving a problem.
One thing I know as a Protestant Christian is that objects cannot be blessed. Only people are blessed. You only bless those who can understand when someone tells them, “bless you.”
That’s why blessing a road is inane. Because the road doesn’t cause accidents. People do.
That bus driver from Don Mariano was reportedly texting while driving, and while his bus was going too fast even when it was raining. Good old common sense is lost on some people.
And why the hell aren’t they abolishing the boundary system yet?
Chino,
Natawa pa ako dun sa driver na yun. He claimed that he was going 30 kph lang daw.
Um, I think it takes more than just salaries and incentives to change attitudes. I say fire all the drivers today then implement the new salary scheme. If they do that without changing the people behind the wheel, it will only reinforce their current behavior. It’s like getting rewarded for bad service.
In the olden days; if things don’t work out. People used the Shaman, to exorcise the Evil Spirits, that were believed to be the causes of the evils prevailing on them. Now, we have Public Officials, bringing Priests, to exorcise the Evil Spirits, that are believed to be causing traffics.
They should put, offerings, to the ANITOS, instead…these are the native gods. I bet, they will find the right answers for their prayers on them; for our EDSA traffic decongestions…
like Peter Pan, you could wish for happy thoughts once you get sprinkled by fairy dust…making buses fly.
:p
I love how you mark grammatical issues with “[sic]” and later make a few mistakes yourself.