Covington: The lone cashier

TUESDAY morning, around 11 a. m., I was at the Quimpo Boulevard Philhealth office to pay my subs. No form filling, no interviews, all I required was a cashier.

The queue at the solitary cashier (out of five windows) wound around the room a couple of times and then literally out of the doors into the street. I fell in line, we shuffled forward and, despite several white-shirted Philhealth officials wandering about, not one person in that mega-queue raised a peep. Until, that is, Philhealth's Mr Decena had the rotten luck to pass by me.

To hell with this Filipino not rocking the boat apathy - I pointed out to Mr Decena that Davao City has only one Philhealth office and that out of a possible five cashier windows only one - ONE - was occupied by a cashier. ONE cashier to serve Davao's population of one million point whatever souls.

(A few minutes after my complaint a second cashier opened his window, a 100% improvement and the line moved twice as fast but why, oh why doesn't Philhealth anticipate these peak times? Train up an extra cashier or two who can stand in when the place is busy? And why am I advising Philhealth on this? Don't they know?)

Parking now and I did like Monday's pastilan photo of an illegally parked (and obviously undisturbed) pickup in front of the City Hall.

What the caption omitted to point out was that the pickup was parked on the sidewalk and on a corner and in an area usually heaving with traffic aides and policemen. Why wasn't the pickup moved on or ticketed? Or even wheel-clamped?

Now there's an idea. Invest in some wheel clamps for use only around the City hall and SP. Clamp 'em up. Make illegal parkers pay some outrageous fee to unlock their wheels. More cash for the city coffers guys - think on it (Naw - wouldn't work. Quite a few of those illegal parkers, especially those blocking Magellanes at the rear of the SP, have red number plates).

Excempting mall parking areas Davao doesn't have any public car parks. Why? Because our city engineers and planners and zoners have yet to realise that this is the age of the auto and that until the world runs out of gasoline the number of cars on the road (and which need to be parked) will increase and increase and increase until the city bursts.

Other places build multi-storey car parks on public lots usually on a build and operate basis. They're hugely expensive to construct but turn a profit because motorists must park off the streets. Parking ordinances are enforced; pickups are not left undisturbed parked on the sidewalk outside one of Davao's premier public buildings.

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