Saturday, May 03, 2008 Roperos: Facing hard times By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
SOME say that there are many ways to cope with the travails of life in the same manner that there are several ways to get to heaven. The problem is, most of us want to be sure of the things we want to do. We are afraid to risk making mistakes until we realize there is no other way to go.
One taxi driver I met the other day seems to have his own mind on how to cope with the hard times. Malaquias ranted against our elective officials, saying that they just do not care about the people who voted them into office.
Of course, he said, the officials can always say that they deserve to enjoy what they acquired at so much cost.
We took Malaquias’ cab on the way to CCTN Channel 47 for our weekly TV talk show together with Manny Rabacal and guest Andy Manatad. Along the way, Malaquias talked about how hard it is for taxi drivers now to earn a living, what with the rise in the prices of rice (by about P10 in less than two months) and of gasoline. Add to that the city’s growing number of taxicabs, which has reached estimated four to five thousand units. Last month, he said he was short of his rent.
Vendor Iyay said that if she is lucky to sell the fish she gets daily, her earning would be enough to buy three to five kilos of corn grit and some spices to go with the vegetables they raise in their backyard.
Before the food crisis, Iyay was able to buy at least half a kilo of pork leg they could stew or beef bones for soup. But in the past couple of weeks, they had to fall back on fish she set aside for their use, and vegetable soup.
There could have been better times for our country, Malaquias said, had our leaders not spent so much money during elections, forcing them to recover these when they are elected in office. Graft and corruption, he noted, is the fastest way to recoup election expenses.
He added: “If only government would ban individual campaigning and print and broadcast media would release information about candidates freely, perhaps things will be different.” Not a bad proposal from a man with three kids in school and driving a taxi for more than a dozen years. But it can work only if the profit-motive of media proprietors can be contained.
But then again, why not if there is political will and government leads the way in getting candidates to be content with just media exposure and getting the people to decide their political destiny strictly from “unstained” ballots.
