Tuesday, November 14, 2006 Cabaero: Virtue of a queue By Nini B. Cabaero Beyond 30
There is virtue in falling in line.
AMID the preparations for the coming next month of thousands of foreign visitors, including dignitaries, there have been calls for Cebuanos to show their best and for foreigners to treat Cebuanos with respect.
And one way — maybe the simplest way — for both host and visitor to see each other on equal footing is to respect the queue.
Falling in line has been taught to even the smallest of school children. In nursery and kindergarten, children are taught to fall in line when getting into the classroom, when going out for recess, when taking a turn to get a book, when getting a pencil.
Somewhere along the way, for some people, the virtue of queuing gets lost as they grow into adulthood and into the rat race.
It is a sign of a society’s development when citizens fall in line when waiting for a ride at a bus stop, when waiting for a turn at the grocery counter, when waiting for the opportunity to get to the next bank teller.
And we can say Cebuanos, or Filipinos in general, usually toe the line.
Except there are some who by habit or out of convenience forget, and, so, they bully their way to the counter. In such situations, the best thing to do is for those in line to raise a howl of protest and point the bully to the end of the line. The line jumper usually realizes the error, gets embarrassed, apologizes, and moves to the end of the line. But there are the incorrigible who ignore such protests and force their way through.
In such extreme cases, the protest gets directed at the person behind the counter for accommodating the bully. What then is the point of forming a line?
Luli Arroyo, President Arroyo’s daughter, knows it from experience. Waiting in line for her turn at an immigration counter at the Manila airport, an immigration officer jumped the line to facilitate processing of passports of foreign visitors. Luli Arroyo complained and the immigration officer verbally abused her. In the end, the immigration officer got sanctioned, not for failing to recognize her, but for failing to show basic courtesy and ignoring proper procedure.
On the part of the Asean summit visitors, the Cebu City Council wants them to learn to be courteous to Cebuanos. Do not think that because visitors are welcome to Cebu they can run roughshod over the local people.
With the Asean summit soon to be upon Cebuanos, part of the preparations beyond the literal whitewashing could be a simple reminder on the virtue of a queue.
There is no better way to show such respect and decency to each other -—to both host and visitor — than to fall in line when the situation requires it.
