A 2024 wishlist
That the Filipino isn’t hard to please is no secret. We are a happy lot – always smiling even in the most difficult of times.
Walk in the poorest slums and you will find shirtless burly men gathered at makeshift tables after a hard day’s work, sharing boisterous laughs over bottles of gin, beer or what-have-you. They will even snap a photo and maybe upload it on their TikTok or Facebook, even for an intermittent one peso WiFi offered by the neighborhood sari-sari store.
Grade schoolers in far-flung areas will cross rivers and wobbly bridges to get to school – laughing all the way – even if for some, their classrooms are decrepit with broken chairs or worse, non-existent, with classes held just under age-old trees.
In Metro Manila, daily commuters brave the tough commute throughout the year. More complicated routes might entail multiple rides – a tricycle ride to the jeepney stop, then a jeepney ride to the MRT station and then to the LRT for the last leg and finally a long walk to wherever work may be.
During holidays, we endure the many challenging ways of traveling to the province just to be with loved ones, whether it’s a dizzying night at sea onboard a crowded ferry or a long, arduous provincial bus ride in a cramped bus reeking of the fetid stench of mangoes mixed with the odor of Salonpas, human sweat and smelly feet.
One can also fly home but during the holiday season, the chaos is multiplied many times over. Just observe the gates at the NAIA domestic terminals and you will see passengers waiting for hours on end because flights were delayed or cancelled altogether.
Those lucky enough to make it through need to walk up ladders with their bags and pasalubongs to get to the plane because the use of tubes makes the airfare more expensive.
But the Filipino passenger does not mind the inconvenience and the stress. Could have been worse, we tell ourselves. So we smile and take selfies on the tarmac just before boarding the plane, going along this gauntlet walk of sorts.
Come election season, the Filipino audience will dance and sing with you, the politico, no matter how hilarious and vertigo-inducing your performance on stage is. Give them a sack of rice or a
