I usually leave the house for work around 7 AM. For 18 months now I have been part of the morning road--in all its dullness.
I simply want to avoid the hideous traffic. A public transpo is not really my ideal sleep spot. Besides, my entire life has been led by 5-AM school bus pick-ups and 7:30-AM class lectures; I don’t see why joining the workforce should be any different.
The routine would be: I prep up, step out of the house, take a tricycle to the village entrance, ride a jeep to the shuttle terminal, take a shuttle to Greenbelt 1, then a six-minute sprint to my office table.
Doing things the same way all the time, every time is indeed tedious. I needed to shake things up a little bit, if only to slow the aging process. And since I have yet to assume director-ship of our office company, I am forced to find excitement somewhere else.
But where?
I turned to one of my neglected opportunities: Sightseeing. And luckily (well, not really), the shuttle’s route to Makati has been altered lately due to some heavyweight construction in Pasay. Hence, new, uh, sights. And here, my friends, is where I found an early victim.
The EDSA-Pasay area has many detours. It’s like the Juggernaut’s circulatory system there. Because of the road construction (and probably the sudden growth in street alligators a.k.a. police people), both public and private vehicles from the south take these detours going to the cities north.
The sight was too obvious to pass. We take this street just past the Philtranco bus station, and there along the bumpy, soil-road, lined up like they were being sold, are babies. Cute, tiny, and of course, innocent, babies. Or is the proper term, clueless?
They were being bathed in the sunlight, I presume. It is for their proper growth: early morning sunlight provides Vitamins A and B, and as new, growing creatures of this planet, babies need them. However, it seems they are getting more than what they bargained for.
Their carriers--presumably their parents or guardians--were also, well, aligned like they were the babies’ auctioners. Absentmindedly “rocking” the young ones like they were fidgeting and--wait for it--while gossiping among one another. And yes, the sun’s rays are a feet away--the groups are safe under the houses/buildings’ shade.
Cars, tricycles, buses, trucks, and what-have-you snake through that road. That virgin road—that is, no asphalt or cement covers it since it probably wasn’t intended for such use in the first place. So what do we have now? Nothing but good ole carbon monoxide mixed with road dust.
Looking around--and I do not mean any form of discrimination--I also see the other grown-ups surrounding these infants. Teenagers running around, yelling bad words like they mean “hi and “hello”. Mothers publicly yelling at their kids. High school students smoking. Half-naked men with unkempt hair and dangling earrings casually looking around. Probably haven’t taken a bath, too.
Forgive moi. I am not degrading on how those babies were being brought up, let alone who are bringing them up. It’s just that we’re already screwed as a people, but apparently its implications hasn’t hit us hard enough that we neglect proper care for the younger members of the society.
Those babies. The hope of tomorrow. Exposed daily to dust, vehicle smoke, gossip, and Tarzan wannabees with earrings. What a bright future indeed.
