Cruel

They wanted to manage the buses; but someone forgot all about the passengers. The result was an act of cruelty inflicted on thousands of passengers left stranded at the Coastal Mall, forced to walk in the rain and confused about what to do next.

It is a wonder that a riot did not erupt last Tuesday, when the MMDA opened the Southwest Bus Terminal in that forlorn patch of reclaimed land on the Pasay coast. It seems Filipinos have evolved into creatures with great tolerance for the incompetence of those who govern them.

The brilliant minds at the MMDA appear to have forgotten that the basic reason we have buses on our roads is that people ride them. If we cut their routes, we should provision for transport that will enable passengers to reach their final destinations.

These must be the same brilliant minds drawing the conclusion that if there were no cars on the road, there will be no traffic jams. Therefore, they want to ban vehicles from the roads twice a week based on their number plates. That will definitely reduce volume; although it will wreak havoc on the city’s economy.

The end-all and be-all of the MMDA is to clear the traffic mess we are heir to. Their purpose in life must be more properly defined: to enable the movement of the same number of people in a more efficient manner through the provision of better mass transport and new road space.

Last Tuesday was particularly severe for commuters coming in from Cavite and Batangas. They had to wait as their buses lined up for over an hour to get to the spanking new terminal. When they were finally at the terminal, they found out they had to walk a long distance to find transport to continue their journey. There were, of course, not enough vehicles to take them to their final destination. The result was chaos.

Meanwhile, with the centralized dispatching system, the buses were held up at the terminal after they unloaded their passengers. That caused the buses to back up in long lines and dried up the supply of transport in all the towns of Cavite for the rest of the day.

Even as the provincial buses were kept from entering the metropolis, traffic flow was jammed the whole day Tuesday. Transport supply was shortened by the longer turnaround times. Commuters were bewildered and then angered by it all. So much passion was wasted cursing at the gods of Metro Manila’s roads.

In the afternoon, the same problems happened. There was not enough transport to get to Coastal Mall. At the spanking new terminal, things moved to a crawl. This was a long day for the people of Cavite who had things to do at the city. They were subjected to cruel and unusual punishment by those who thought they had solved problems, not compounded them.

MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino shrugged it all off, saying all the things that seemed to go wrong was simply a matter of habituation. When we get used to the new arrangement, he implies, things will work out just fine.

So people, get habituated to this.

No worry

The week began with a car bomb going off at busy Sinsuat Avenue at the heart of Cotabato City, sending shrapnel flying in all directions. Eight people died. Scores were injured. A whole city went on shutdown.

President Aquino declared this was not an act of terror. That might seem to be a puzzling thing to say in the face of the carnage (this is the first time a car bomb was ever used in the country).

What the President meant, if I may be allowed to interpret him, is that this does not seem to be driven by fundamentalist factions and is not related to the terror alert raised by the US. Washington, according to the latest bulletin, ordered it nationals out of Yemen in anticipation of a major Al Qaeda assault. The President thinks the bombing was done by parties out to sabotage the peace process.

Nevertheless, this is the third bombing in Mindanao in just over a week. The one in Sulu appears to be due to clan warfare. The one that killed doctors in Cagayan de Oro City remains without identifiable motive. The latest one at Cotabato City may be due to political rivalry, although we have no conclusive statement from the police just yet — regardless of the President’s public theorizing about the event.

A second bomb went off in Cotabato City late Tuesday. Fortunately no one was injured this time.

Should we be worried?

Our officials think we should not. They are busy trying to underplay the string of bombing attacks that plagued Mindanao, snuffing out innocents.

The only thing played up in the funnier sections of our media community is Mar Roxas’ pique at the crime scene in Cagayan de Oro being cleaned up ahead of his arrival. That denied the DILG secretary the opportunity for a photo op.

The use of a car bomb in Cotabato is clearly a disturbing escalation in destructive power. The detonation of a bomb in the most crowded section of Cagayan de Oro clearly indicates murderous intent.

The mayor of Cotabato asked the national government to put the area under a state of emergency. He is surely not taking the attack lightly. The Palace asked for time to study the proposal.

There is merit in avoiding public hysteria by trying to downplay the attacks. There is greater merit, however, in responding to the breakdown of order with a more credible effort.