Hellish highway to...heaven?

CURSES! ALL the idiots and imbeciles out on the road soon as one hits MacArthur Highway from the St. Jude Village home.  

Jeepneys making the highway’s northbound outermost lane from the Lazatin Blvd. intersection a dedicated expressway exclusive to them, in utter disregard of the traffic light there. Gago!  

Tricycles taking the innermost, and therefore fast, lane in their own sweet time, holding all vehicles behind them to a processional, aye, funereal, pace. Bolang!   

Stuck in traffic with the red light by Vista Mall with neither vehicle nor pedestrian turning to or coming from its small street entrance. ‘taknayda…!  

Caught in horrendous jam at St. Scholastica’s Academy during morning classes and afternoon dismissals. Buwisit!   

Motorcyclists weave in and out of traffic, take the very median, and drive through traffic lights at whim. Ulol!

Dump trucks heavily loaded with sand making a speed track out of the national highway. Tarantado!

The whole breadth of the highway occupied by hauler trucks entering or exiting Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and San Miguel complexes. Put…naydayo!  

Got to expel all the expletives, else one’s system gets so pressured the blood in the brain explodes. And for what good?

So, take photos of all and any traffic infraction one sees as one drives and upload them later in the web. With traffic enforcers no better than the inanimate electric posts they lean onto, the blood boils, the curses more damning, the simple bolang devolving to mabolang-bolang a buguk!   

Really got to take the mind off this rage. So, why not engage oneself in some game, like counting cars. As in how the Mitsubishi Montero fares against the Toyota Fortuner in sheer numbers? The ratio is for every one of the former, there are three of the latter.

Or, which color is predominant among cars and SUVs? It’s a toss among red, black, and white.

Or, trying to sight a still roadworthy kotseng kuba? But for the four in St. Jude, I regularly see only two on the highway. On a good day at that.  

Getting tired of mental sports, why not entertain oneself with funny road stories, like that one about a Baluga – damn the political incorrectness but that’s how the character was originally called – going on his first mini-bus ride from Angeles City to San Fernando.  

So, the kulot took the Thames mini and settled himself in a cramped seat. Once on the way, the conductor began asking passengers where they would alight. One said “Pepsi.” Another, “Coca-Cola.” A third, “Cosmos.” A fourth, “San Miguel.” When it was the Baluga’s turn, he sheepishly said: “Danum na mu pu, coya. Ala cu pung panyaling sopdrink (Just water, I don’t have money to buy soda.)” For the uninitiated, the bottling companies and the brewery are main stops along the highway between the two cities.

So, the frown invariably melts into a smile at every memory of the kuwentong kulut. The revelry, only to be smacked anew by the reality of street anarchy. Anakpu…!

So much hatred of these road idiots and imbeciles that when one chances upon a dump truck that smashed some wall, a jeepney that struck a tree, a tricycle on its side by the roadside, a riderless broken motorcycle on the road, one finds more sympathy with the wall, the tree, the roadside, and the road. A feeling of karmic glee even – bage yu, diyablos! Of schadenfreude: pleasure, in this case ah, so supreme, over the misfortune of another.

Until one realizes the unChristianity of it all, and seeks some other means, charitable and prayerful ones, in coping with traffic tension here.

Like, suppliant invocation of the saints and the Holy Virgin Mother, and asking for mercy from Jesus or thanking Him along one’s way, as one passes or is paused along areas that remind one of them.

As in one’s usual route: starting from home with the patron of the impossible St. Jude, onto San Agustin (parish church), St. Scholastica (school), San Isidro (barangay), San Miguel (brewery), Nuestra Senora Del Pilar (village), Mother Teresa of Calcutta (hospital), St. John Bosco (school), Our Lady of Fatima (college), St. Paul (novitiate), Our Lady of Mt. Carmel (hospital), St. Maximillian Kolbe (subdivision), San Rafael (college), onto the Most Sacred of Jesus (church), before reaching the Punto! office.

That personal litany of saints has since evolved into praying the Holy Rosary – supplemented with a longer litany, and prayers for the dead and the sick, for benefactors, for the Pope, even for the President – in my daily commute, my fingers serving as the beads, difficult as it is to hold a rosary simultaneously with the wheel.     

Of course, I harbor no illusions of holiness. The sinner that I am, this may not even take me to heaven, but it has most certainly given me much relief from the demons that make hell out of MacArthur Highway.