Tungaw cannot hide under the Lahug flyover

Since my boyhood days, I did not know the English word for Tungaw. We just experienced being afflicted by tungaw after our games either on the grassy playground or in the bushes because of an uncomfortable degree of itch specially in our private parts where it preferred to hide. I recall that the tungaw was so very tiny, almost microscopic, that it was difficult to find. Only the itch on that part of our body where it stuck could lead us where the tungaw with its distinctive reddish color had struck. My lady Carmen, whom I asked yesterday, thought that the English term could be flea. Uhm, it sounded more likely. In order to have the correct translation, I went to the Internet and found out that tungaw is a “red mite that abounds in bushes, producing an itchy bite and hiding in skin pores.”

I remember the tungaw when my driver Arnel Palen and I went under the Lahug flyover, few nights ago. Coming from Talamban, we then stopped at the corner of Gov. Cuenco Avenue awaiting the green light for us to turn left to San Jose de la Montana. The area was very brightly lighted that it was easy to find tungaw if there was one. The tungaw cannot hide under that flyover. Salamagan, as the Tagalogs would say. I could not anymore count the number of 40-watt fluorescent bulbs (they could be LED lights) that were installed in rows of just about an arm’s length distant each. There were also just too many spot light-like bulbs placed probably to make sure that whole area was more brightly lit than the brilliance of a 12 o’clock noon summer sun.

Modesty aside, I do not know how to calculate the cost of the wattage consumed. Considering the mind-blowing number of such facilities used though, I surmise that the lights at the Lahug flyover must be a heavy burden on our taxes whether national or local.

What a wanton extravagance and unconscionable waste! The Malacanang grounds pale in comparison were we to consider the lighting. Of course, the situation may now be different because I walked that palace garden many years ago. But, I also stood outside the Palace of the King of Thailand just few months ago and on a proportionate area, it had about one fourth less the number of lighting fixtures installed compared to those found under the Lahug fly over. I may not have an engineering degree to my name, but here and now, I dare advance the opinion that it is unnecessary to install those innumerable lighting facilities in an area where nothing worth looking at needs to be extremely lighted.

A study says that darkness is likely to influence perceptions of safety and fear of crime amongst pedestrians. The area under the Lahug fly over is a pedestrian zone. Reducing these perceptions into reality, we can admit that darkness breeds crime. Accordingly, fear of crime and perceived risk of crime in the intersection of San Jose de la Montana, Archbishop Reyes Avenue, Gov. Cuenco Avenue and Salinas Drive is, most probably higher at night than during the day. It is thus acceptable that we install lighting facilities as a matter of safety and security. The glare of light supposedly drives away the criminal mind.

Our government however, is overdoing it here at the Lahug fly over. Concerned government agencies may remove three fourths of the lighting fixtures there and still the area will be sufficiently lighted. Call it an idiot’s suggestion but they can use these removed materials to lighten up critical areas of the road from Pit-os to Lusaran. Unless empirical data are made available, this idiotic idea, I hope, rather drives a point.