Sigwa: Sa Pagpalipas ni Haring Habagat

Manong felt like new.

I rode a taxi again today from Sta. Mesa to Ateneo, just to be able to make it in time for a Philo group meeting my friends and I were having. The meeting was at 9:30. I checked my watch, and it was 9:03, and I had still not gotten a cab. I was desperate. A taxi finally stopped in front of me, but as I was waiting for the occupant to disembark, an old couple in their late 60s came from behind and entered the cab, with the previous passenger still inside.Of course the previous passenger, the driver, and I were shocked. I began to tell the old man who had taken the front seat that I had rights to this taxi, but then he merely shrugged me away and gave directions to the driver. They were going to Cubao to watch a movie. I come from a good natured albeit odd Filipino Catholic family that values respect for the aged. My family also respects individual rights. So I guess they'll have to forgive me when I banged on lolo's window and said, "It's old people like you and your inconsiderate, brash generation that trained the current generation to be self serving thieves who care merely for their own interests." Then I looked at lola in the back seat and said, "You should be ashamed of yourselves. You people don't deserve my respect, or anyone else's for that matter. No matter how old you may be. It's people like you who screwed up the Philippines, leaving us with an unkempt, morally depraved society. TAXI THIEVES!" Lolo was furious. but he motioned to the taxi driver to go ahead instead. I'm sure he wanted to give me a lecture on what he did in his youth and middle age to help Philippine society, just as every old bastos coot in Manila wants to do, but the reality is that rationalizing your brash behavior now by citing past reference to good works is futile. Society, and maybe even God, doesn't look at what you were, but rather, what you've become. If you're a bastos old coot now, that's what matters. Screw the fact that you're the chairman of the parish social committee, or that you worked for greenpeace in your youth. If you don't respect me, that means you don't know squat about human dignity.

I HATE Taxi Thieves.