Back to where we were

IRETURNED to Manila in 1983, after 8 years extended tours of duty at our Consulate General in Hamburg and cross-posting to our Embassy in Bonn. Speed limits on German autobahns are determined only whether you drive a BMW, Porsche or a karag-karag Trabant (from the former East Germany). Within the city, you slow down to 15 kph on approach to hospitals, school zones, and the like. Crossings are controlled by robot traffic lights; and where there are none, right of way on co-equal street crossings automatically goes to the motor vehicle coming from the right. Everyone knows and observes traffic discipline which is taught even at grammar school. It is said that there is a tombstone in a Bonn cemetery engraved heroically, ”I died for my right of way.”

My boss, Ambassador Gregorio G. Abad, loved the then capital of Germany, Bonn, because you can go from ministry to ministry with ease. He added that “…If you wanted some bright lights, there are enough tucked in the alleys…If you wanted brighter lights you’re only 45 minutes away from Düsseldorf… and if you wanted real bright lights you’re only 4 hours away from Hamburg!”

*** Germany is not the real world; and in that real world, the Philippines is a notable exception proving the rule. On returning home, I would be welcomed by Manila’s mayhem traffic. I couldn’t drive our Mercedes-Benz metallic grey station wagon for several weeks; I just parked it in the driveway of our apartment residence on Felipe Agoncillo St. in Malate.

Until Holy Week 1983, when Manila emptied to Matabungkay, Boracay, and the airport to take holidayers to Hong Kong, Tokyo, the Holy Land, and foreign places. Like the parting of waters, Manila’s thoroughfares opened, and I screwed my courage to drive in Manila. I needed only those four days from Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday to recover my bearings and rediscover both good and bad habits that I had learned about driving in Manila. Jeepneys then, as they are now, even give way to higher end vehicles.

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It feels that way again this Holy Week — for the same reasons, albeit with the motoring traffic numerically amplified. Even until this Monday, our daughter Kochel attested the traffic was still bearable and civil.

But last Holy Week, we wanted to do visita iglesia on Maundy Thursday. We skipped Malate Church after seeing parked cars overflowing close to Roxas Boulevard. We drove instead forward. until we found a parking slot on the left side of Manila Cathedral We stayed for mass and the Washing of the Feet, and saved our parking space by taking Gerard’s pedicab to pedal us to and from nearby San Augustin Church where the bistros and cafes were doing more thriving business. We returned to our parking slot, only to find a car with a Supreme Court sticker locking us in. We did not realize that we would have to wait one and a half hours for the owner to return and let us out. But he was polite and civil and apologized for the trouble to us; and in the spirit of the season, I said that it was not his fault, but that of the parking attendant. (I had advised for future times to either ask for the key or the mobile phone number of the motorist who may park inconveniently).

That was our spiritual and temporal acts of mercy for the Holy Week.

*** My two centavos worth: Why are we upset that Grab bought out Uber in PH and the rest of the region? Our naysayers say that having only one of them opens the field to monopoly. Nobody complained about a monopoly all the time when we had neither one?

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Divine Mercy in a cockfighting arena? Only in the Philippines: Bishop Marcelino Antonio Maralit of Boac said he authorized the installation of an image of the Divine Mercy inside a cockfighting arena in Boac with the intention of spreading the devotion.

St. Peter’s sign is the rooster. A remembering of his Master’s prediction that before the crock crows, “you will deny me three times.” FEEDBACK: