I usually don’t take the MRT whenever I go home from work.  I’m usually not in a hurry to do anything, and I suppose the extra expense of taking a city bus is well worth it.  For one, there’s a better chance for me to have a seat on the long commute from Ortigas Center to Commonwealth.  For two, a window seat in the chaos of rush-hour traffic gives me a good, long look into a world without high-rise office buildings and the pretentiousness of office workers from “Ehrr-tee-gess.”

There’s also laziness; eight hours of sitting down, interrupted by a few cigarette breaks every now and then, tends to take away your ability to negotiate that flight of stairs that leads up to Shaw Boulevard station.  Climbing it reminds me of when I was a kid at Lourdes Grotto, where I managed to knock myself out to a semi-conscious state because I sprinted halfway up the steep stairs leading to the statue of Mary.

I take the buses bound for SM Fairview.  With my weak eyes and lack of coordination, it gets a bit tricky to board the right bus at exactly the right time.  Drivers always seem to be in a hurry to load and unload passengers, especially at non-designated “informal” bus stops.  A few times I end up boarding the wrong bus, bound either for Novaliches or for Monumento.  At least, there’s always Trinoma to look forward to.

The bus itself is a world of paradoxes.  You would think that in a time of fuel crisis and low wages, people would board the ordinary bus.  Yet there’s a certain indignity in riding them, where you rub shoulders with sweaty men in undershirts who work harder than you do, yet get paid much less.  The few extra pesos spent in an air-conditioned bus with on-board DVD is a small price to pay for a small comfort, even if you do have to stand up and cram out front at the aisle.

Any bus that plies the EDSA route will inevitably stop at Cubao.  If Dante were alive, he would be aghast at the almost hellish world that lies beyond the paradise that is Gateway.  The iron fences erected by the MMDA do little to discipline the crowd moving to board the buses from the entrance of Farmers’ Plaza, who push and shove to make the most of standing room.  As if by some unknown sin, a worker at Cubao bound for Fairview is forced to pay dire penance, unless some unknown soul gives up his or her seat because he or she lives either at Timog or East Avenue.

It’s also in Cubao where the business of “ticket inspection” takes place.  Some man or lady boards the bus for the sole purpose of tearing up bus tickets.  I’ve been told that this is a “5-6” operation, although I think that it’s more of a way to prevent “1-2-3.”  Whatever the numbers are, they’re written on a sheet of paper.  God knows, in the form of this stern messenger with glasses, “Judas” not pay.

The conductors, inspectors, MMDA traffic people, and bus drivers are not the only people entitled to make a living off a bus at EDSA.  From time to time, especially at the stop in front of Robinsons’ Galleria, there will be some vendors who distribute a small slip that tell you they’re handicapped working students who support their education selling macapuno or dried mangoes.  Not having a sweet tooth, but irritatingly polite, I return the slip with the promise that I’ll buy a few treats if I can afford them, or if I’m looking for sugar.  In both cases, I don’t anyway.  My redeeming qualities as a human being are extremely limited.

The other important enterprises in EDSA rush hour traffic are bottled water and peanuts.

Paranoia sometimes gets the best of me when it comes to water; while the bottle looks mouth-wateringly chilled, I sometimes suspect that the bottles are filled and refilled with tap water.  I have no problems drinking from a faucet; that is, provided that I know where I’m drinking water from.  You kind of suspect something wrong when the bottle is sold to you at the ridiculously cheap price of ten pesos.  You start to imagine (and in my case, hallucinate) about dysentery, cholera, or bad diarrhea at three in the morning.

The peanuts, I cannot resist; resistance is futile when you’re offered “mani,” in more ways than one.  Fried garlicky salted peanuts remind me so much of “Manang Mani” back in UP Baguio, who would absolutely have no problem with my rather outlandish (yet appetizing) requests of bagoong alamang added to my purchases of turnips, green mangoes, and yes, peanuts.  It takes skill, strength, and balls to board buses while you’re carrying a plastic bucket full of peanuts or cashew nuts.  Lately, the loose associations of iterant bus-hopping vendors have taken to wearing numbered orange shirts, which remind you a lot of prison.  You think that one of them have finished a sentence, but is a former inmate and charter member of Sige-Sige Sputnik.

The billboards are different.  I’ve always had this preference for the driver-side window seats, where I could see a lot of those billboards featuring Anne Curtis.  It’s completely remote (and it’s a head-slap moment), but I sometimes wish that I was a showbiz fanboy blogger just to get that one entry done featuring a dinner conversation with Anne… but I end up talking to politicians about politics.  I’m not complaining, but come on!  Although I do have to admit that there are some angles of Ruffa Gutierrez that are alluring, I still find Claudine Baretto more beautiful than Gretchen, and I still nitpick with my showbiz-aware friends about how Judy Ann Santos looks when she “dared to get wet.”  Perhaps it’s very… “Ploning…” but that’s just me.

I sometimes wish I could learn a better lesson from all of this; that those profound and meaningful things happen to me on a daily basis every time I board a bus at rush hour.  Well, not really, except that hour-long commutes, with all its quirks, teach you a lot about perspective.  You view these stills of chaos, searching for those inspirational – perhaps even emo – things that you could blog about and preach as a lesson in life.  But really, there’s nothing you learn there anyway that you don’t already know.  Things like “fleeting moments,” “time is gold,” “transience,” “look both ways.”

These days, I don’t dwell in the emo, the profound, or the philosophy of bus riding pace Heidegger.  There’s that all-important valuable lesson you get from riding buses: “Don’t jump off the bus while it’s moving, you crazy-ass motherfucker.”

Cubao is a place you either love to hate, or hate to love.

There are a lot of things I like about Cubao.  As much as I hate malls, I really like Gateway.  Cubao is also a great place to do ukay, provided you have the patience and a lot of haggling skills.  Being the transport hub of the Metropolis, you can get to any point in the NCR just by being at Cubao, provided you know train routes, bus routes, jeepney routes, and have enough courage to walk Aurora Boulevard alone.  Aurora is also home to great mami, if you’re too late or too lazy to head on over to Binondo.  On the other hand, I hate Cubao for having a place called “Session Road” that stinks to high heavens with the mingling odors of diesel, urine, and fish.  There’s no place in Cubao where you can whip out your cellphone with confidence.  And the fact that it’s a transport hub, which means that it can get crowded and rowdy at times.

In the 13 stations of the MRT, there are four choke-points.  North Avenue, being the first station, takes the passengers from the CAMANAVA area and Novaliches.  Cubao is a major choke-point because it is the main transport hub of Metro Manila.  Ayala Station is dead-center of the Makati CBD, so it can be chaotic at times.  Taft Avenue, being the last station, takes up the passengers of everyone coming from Pasay City and everyone else south of it.

For a regular MRT commuter, Cubao is akin to the allegories of Dante, the muckraking of Upton Sinclair, and the “Huh?” moments you get watching “The World’s Biggest Gang Bang.”  Most trains already get to full capacity when they depart from the first station at North Avenue, then load up at Quezon Avenue and GMA-Kamuning.  Cubao is where push comes to shove.

Morning south-bound routes tend to be a test of patience, and to a certain extent, common sense.  For example, if you ride the MRT every day, it makes no sense to buy single-journey tickets every day.  Or if you know that the train is already loaded up, you wouldn’t try to pack the commuters already inside the train just so that you can afford yourself an extra few inches of space.  Of course, there’s that other alternative: wake up early and catch the first train to wherever you’re working, and spare yourself the hassle of the crowd.  Although some friends of mine swear by the “quicker” commuting solution to get to Makati from Cubao: ride LRT-2 from Cubao to Recto, and board the LRT-2 from Doroteo Jose to Gil Puyat.  It kind of makes sense, but who would believe in the sensibility of riding two trains and get to your destination quickly, instead of waiting for 30 minutes for space at one train?

I find it inconvenient to board the MRT at night whenever I go home from work, because I’m not actually in a hurry.  Whenever I go home, I take the bus.  (The other alternative would be to ride a jeepney that plys the Ortigas-Libis-Cubao route, ride a jeep bound for Lagro at Cubao, stop at Philcoa, and take another ride to UP Campus.  It’s expensive and impractical, but it sure as hell is faster than a bus by five precious minutes.)  That itself is not without its disadvantages and consequences…

Air-conditioned buses may be a nice way to get somewhere in Metro Manila, but it can get expensive (not to mention overloaded).  The choke-point is, of course, my least-favorite mall in Manila: Farmer’s Plaza.  What makes this place so dangerous and so irritating for bus commutes is that queuing is optional; it’s all a matter of getting to a bus door.

The irritated commuters in Cubao generally are people who would overlook personal discipline and blame things on the more mundane non-problems of the bus system.  Every bus is bound to have a problem, not the least of which is the complaint of a man who shouted that there aren’t “enough” doors on the bus, that’s why they can’t board.  It’s hard to reason with old men; I think there are more legitimate, perfectly understandable reasons for the failings of the bus operators than bus design.

So what does this tell us?  I have absolutely no idea, knowing that all the hectoring and preaching about “discipline” and “order” only results to justifying a lack of it – or its absence, even – in terms of your standing in the economy, or the failings of those richer than you.  As much as I hate to admit it, the Filipino consciousness has been so corrupted with convenience, with being “first” “in” “a line,” and just about everything else.

It’s a lot like Cubao: you either love to hate the justification, or you hate to love it.

Once you get used to artificial lighting and a giant concrete wall blocking your view of the world, you lose track of time.  It’s a good thing I don’t do night shift, or else my body clock will be seriously messed up as it is.  “Early” is a state of mind, so I managed to ditch my daily after-work ritual - proofreading - and managed to get out of the office building with a full view of a cloudless, crystal-blue sky.

Had the Sun been ten degrees cooler, it would have been perfect.  This isn’t heaven, darling.  And this sure ain’t Sparta.

In a four-letter word, EDSA.

I have to go all 300 for the morning MRT commute, which does traverse EDSA.  Whenever I ride the MRT and have a clear view of the street-commuting peons down below, I feel like King Leonidas sans the cinematic steroids:

Madness?  This is EDSA!
Commuters?  What is your profession?  (Outsourced labor!  Ha-whoo!  Ha-whoo!)
Ready your breakfast and eat hearty, for tonight, WE RIDE IN HELL!

If historically inaccurate cinematic testosterone is not your thing, then afternoon commutes have their own sense of emo-ness.  There’s nothing more emo than waiting for a bus at 5:30 in the afternoon at the very artery of an alienating metropolis, despairing, forever waiting, wondering if there’s a place for you in this world beyond the back of the bus.

If that’s not emo-ness, I guess you have to stretch it a bit further.  You do find your place: somewhere in between.  You either talk about Lifehouse concerts you’ve already had reserved tickets to, or you talk about the aisle of a rickety deathtrap where you’re faced with a gauntlet of elbows and asses.  If you’re virgin, one swerving move by the driver could have you getting fellated through your jeans.

Then you ask yourself about the meaning of life.  If that’s not navel-gazing, I don’t know what is.  There’s really nothing existential about riding a bus at 30-degree heat, trading sweat with the working class.  These are the moments when you, an activist, revise Marxist theory (dum dum dum!) and include call center agents and their kind among the 70% majority of the Philippine proletariat.  Hey, if you’re as politically-inclined as I am, EDSA does hold a special place in your heart.

Never mind if you feel the urge to head to that commemorative plaque in front of the EDSA Shrine, drop your pants, and defecate on the engraved name of President What’s-Her-Face.  You have to do this at a particular angle if, like many Filipinos, you believe that the Virgin Mary is omniscient.

Robert Frost once wrote:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

In my case, that road is called Katipunan.

I stop at Shaw Boulevard Station at around 6:45 AM.  As I run along that sidewalk that is the theoretical administrative border between Mandaluyong and Pasig, I start to get really pissed off…

Who in the blue hell designed Ortigas Center?

I finally figured out why an “enterprising” taxi driver (driving a “Eulincoln” Nissan Sentra taxi, plate number TVU 227… e-mail me for the cellphone number) was able to legitimately hoodwink me out of P100 for a cab ride on a rainy Friday afternoon last week (from SM Megamall to my office at Tycoon Center).  One-way routes all over the place are designed for pissant taxi drivers to milk the wages out of poor writers like myself who do not know how to count change.

In my anger, I still have a draft of a strongly-worded letter to the local transport bureau to arrest and discipline this moron who offered me the services of a quack doctor for the sum of P500, and even took a nudge at the possibility of my fare justifying a replacement for his cheap-ass radio “made in China.”

I guess this is my own hazing to the many manloloko’s and pa-simple’s of all 17 cities and municipalities of Metro Manila.  I am sure that this nation’s capital is not short on thieves and hoodlums who plunder the pockets of the common man to get ahead in life.  I don’t need to swim along and across a certain polluted river to get close to some shining examples of the decay of Filipino society.

I’m sending that letter tomorrow.  Next up: another draft of a letter to be sent to the MetroStar Express to curb shoving in the MRT.

As you may have already guessed, this entry is all about trains.  This entry runs on two beliefs:

1. That “enema” is a good metaphor for the Metro Rail Transit (MRT), and;
2. If a man makes a negative remark (even in passing) about the opposite sex, he is automatically a “sexist chauvinist pig.”

The MRT is the most convenient way for me to get anywhere: by “anywhere,” I mean stations between North Avenue and Shaw.  In a previous entry, I described the MRT as such:

The Metro Rail Transit, or what I call the mechanical enema of Manila’s public transport system, is meant for people who are already familiar with it.  The MRT is one fast piece of shit, but it’s still pretty much a piece of shit when it comes to passenger comfort and convenience.

Let’s start with Point #1.  Me and my new workmates were discussing the possibility of writing about enemas awhile back, then it hit me: I hit the nail right on the head when I described the MRT as “enema.”  The MRT was supposed to cleanse the congested bowels (metaphorically) of the Metro Manila transport system, but it effectively became the bowels (figuratively) of the Metro Manila transport system.  It’s mechanical enema: it’s hard going in, and it’s a bit hard going out.  Holding it in is different from expelling it.  To get in is torture: to get out is relief.

Not that I’ve had an enema before, but this feeling was explained very thoroughly and in graphic detail by my dad, who had an enema before his urologist examined his prostate.  No offense, Dad.

*     *     *

Which brings me to Point #2: any critique, constructive or otherwise, will be perceived of by a closed-minded feminist bitch (not beeyotch, not biatch, I definitely mean “bitch”) that I’m an enemy to womynkind.  What I observed is that a crowded cab in the MRT is not necessarily caused by the volume of passengers, but ladies cramming themselves into the rear passenger cabs.

The problem is rather obvious at this point: the front cabs of the MRT are designated for the elderly, children, and female passengers.  We male passengers ride at the back cabs.  An elementary school analogy would suffice: woman = front, man = back.  Now before you start wrongfully accusing me of being a deluded civil rights activist who demands equal opportunity for marginalized men, this is a simple issue of comfort.  The other day, I was crammed into the MRT (as usual) when this woman beside me started muttering about how crowded it was and why the men weren’t yielding their seat to her.

Like… yeah, right.  The back cabs of an MRT, my lady friends, are a man’s world.  This is where sexist and gay-sounding figures of speech like, “Man-to-man” and “It’s a man thing” apply.  Chivalry died with Launcelot and Guenevere.  Deal with it, and go ride out front.

“Chauvinist sexist pig?”  Well, oink to you too.