"Storyland " brings me back...

the time when I first realized books are sources of wonderful things that can only be experienced through imagination. It was the first book I can remember reading, a book full of images -- of grasshoppers and ants and caterpillars and butterflies and colorful flowers and the sun and the wind and the child in me immersed in all such pure beauty.

Charity Starts At Home

I'd evenly share the million dollars to each of my siblings and parents. They would have needed the money more than I do. Besides, if I have such a huge sum of money, I could be a multi-millionaire and it's always good to share things with other people. And charity starts at home.

Manila Cab Chronicles: Receipt-Generating Taxi Meters

One recent morning, I was surprised when I boarded my taxi: the cab’s meter looked nothing I saw before – it’s the new model presumably being required of all Manila taxi operators by the Land Transportation Office (LTO):

My Shiro Taxi cabbie said the LTO now requires operators to purchase the new electronic meter upon renewal of the vehicle’s registration and have it installed in their taxi units. He told me that his operator bought a batch of the new meters last December 2008 right after the LTO announcement that receipt-generating meters should now be used by all Manila taxicabs.

Apparently, the Shiro Taxi operator was very compliant as his unit’s plate number was TWS 361and the registration for which was scheduled still a month later -- last January 2009. According to my cabbie, the deadline for the installation of the new taxi meters is August 2009. He also told me that small operators having few taxi units in his fleet are complaining of such LTO directive as each new digital meter costs around Php 17,000. (I think there would be no surprise at all if some irresponsible operators will be passing-on the cost to hapless cabbies.)

He said one of the downsides of the new metering scheme for drivers like him is the cost of the thermal receipts. He has to shelve Php 60 for each small roll of the receipt that, he said, he buys at the LTO. For how long does a roll last, I wasn’t able to ask (or I think he said a roll usually takes three days to be consumed – I can’t fully remember.)

In any case, the new receipt-issuing taximeter is a very welcome sight for regular cab passengers like me who has generally become distrustful of most Manila cab drivers because their dishonesty in using de-calibrated metering machines.

Before getting off the taxi, I requested for the receipt and my driver politely tore off the piece of paper from the SMV Electronic Taximeter and gave it to me. Here’s what it looks like:

And here are the information indicated in the receipt:
------------------------------
Taxi Company’s Name: Shiro Taxi
Taxi Company Address: 13 Fushsia St., Del Nacia, Sauyo, Novaliches, Q.C.
TIN #: 219-264-748-000 NON-VAT
Contact Number: 984-1473


OR #: 002058-1
Serial #: D11404
Date: Feb-17-2009
Time: 7:53:37
Taxi Name: Shiro Taxi
Taxi No.: 0007
Color Code: White
Driver Code: 0001
Plate Number: TWS-361
H/Time: 7:21 – 7:53
W/Time: 0:02:51
Distance: 15.5 km.
Fare: P160.00


Thank you for riding
This serves as an official receipt
POS#


Permit#
116-000400152-000206-6571
------------------------------
I find some of the information revealing: H/Time, which I suppose is my total Hire Time for the cab, is 32 minutes (W/Time probably stands for the Waiting Time or the total time the vehicle is at full stop for the entire duration of the trip. So, if indeed Waiting Time is 00:02:51, then total productive time for the cab is 00:29:01). If for every 32 minutes, the fare amounts to Php 160.00, then non-stop 24-hour operations for a cabbie translates to Php 7,200 in revenues.

If for a 24-hour period, a cabbie has a passenger for only 50 % of the time, then his net income would be around Php 700 (i.e., Php 3,600 less both Php 1,400 for a full-tank fuel expense and Php 1,500 for the taxi “boundary”, as it is called in taxi lingo, or the cabbie’s payment to the operator for the rental of the latter’s unit).

This take-home pay of Php 700, which I think is a minimum, is not at all bad for a normal and honest work-day by a Manila cabbie.

The Mecca for the Gadget-Loving Pinoy

Last week, Mi Amore and I went to the Greenhills Shopping Center in Greenhills, San Juan to have the LCD or touch screen of her Palm Treo repaired.

For the middle class, the word “Greenhills” is synonymous to the term “bargain” much like “Divisoria” is for the Class D and E market. And it is in Greenhills that you can get an indication that the country is indeed the texting capital of the world.

The entire second floor of the Center Plaza is dedicated to all things electronica.. Pinoys who lose sleep over having an old cellphone model considers it as their electronic oasis:

You can find both the latest-trendy and not-so-latest-trendy cell units in this place – all at below the usual retail prices (although you have to be aware that they’re usually China-made Class A imitation units). Iphones, Ipods, Itouch-es, PlayStations, PSPs, Wiis, Xbox-es, MP3 players, PDAs, laptops, memory cards, keypads, casings, cell guards, chargers, batteries, digital cameras – name it and you can find it in this place.

Stores offer mp3/mp4 downloads, game installations, Iphone unlocking, repairs, upgrades, E-loads, Cell-loads, Wallet loads, and all other electronic or cell services imaginable. You could also choose to trade-in or sell your antiquated cell unit to one of the hundreds of electronic stalls which noticeably are being run by Muslim and Chinese merchants.

The Greenhills Shopping Center is a mecca for the gadget-loving Pinoy.

Manila Cab Chronicles: Batingting

I’ve instinctively assigned waypoints in my morning taxi route. Three years of taking a taxi going to work and all the mundane things associated with it has subconsciously forced me to track my daily taxi trip. For instance, I have this waypoint along Congressional Avenue near the Circle C mall. I’ve also assigned the corner of Congressional and EDSA, and the first corner turning into Circumferential Road 3 (C3) as my taxi waypoints.

I need such waypoints to monitor if the taxi’s meter is accurate and estimate what would be my cab fare for the morning ride. Of course, the reason why I have to do this is because Manila cabbies have this reputation of rigging taxi meters.

I had this interesting chat with my cab driver of a couple of mornings ago. He professes that he abhors his fellow drivers who intentionally rigs their meter in order to charge their passengers extra. A tampered meter translates to an additional fare ranging from 10 to as high as 40 pesos, he says. I check his meter as he is saying this and believes him.

 Manila Cab Meter Photo ripped off from this site.

In Manila cabbie lingo, rigged taxi digital metering machines are known as or to have batingtings. According to my cabbie, there are two types of batingtings:

1. Rekta (Direct). The machine is calibrated so that the extra fare is automatically added to what is the otherwise normal charge. The cabbie says some unscrupulous guys connected to the Land Transportation Office (LTO) has made a killing out of decalibrating electronic taxi meters. My cabbie says that they hook the meter up with a computer to adjust the settings. For about 200 pesos, they can decalibrate a digital meter so that a cabbie earns extra for every trip. Bastards.

2. Manually By Switching. The rigged meter is connected to a switch that the driver may choose to turn on anytime during the trip. I assume that the switch may be hidden somewhere in the steering wheel, the transmission or in a part of the dashboard or driver seat inconspicuous to the passenger. My cabbie says that a deceitful driver switches the batingting especially if he feels irritated with the passenger, which is, of course, not a justification. But if such is the case, it’s always wise not to show arrogance to your driver although you cannot do anything with a inherently crooked cabbie.

In Manila, My Manila, if you’re successful in flagging down a cab, you’re at the mercy of the taxi driver for the duration of the trip. However, it could be the other way around considering the stories of nighttime taxi holdups by criminal-passengers which I’ve heard from the cabbies themselves.

I think that once a passenger boards a Manila taxi, a general atmosphere of distrust starts to form inside the cab -- a negative feeling that can perhaps be dampened by an honest chitchat between driver and passenger.

Manila Cab Chronicles: Intro

I’ve been a daily taxi rider for more than three years now -- I take a cab every morning going to work. Every day I get to banter with a different driver about topics like politics, the economy, work, the daily life, karma, family and romance and even sex.

The usual morning ride starts, of course, with hailing a cab which, for a perennial office late-comer like me, means that I always have to choose the perfect spot at specific times in the morning where the chances of getting an available taxi is very high – a bad decision usually results to a waiting time of at least thirty minutes before I hail a taxi.

This often happens on Monday mornings or the morning after a payday. Even I do manage to hail a cab on these days, the driver shuns to accommodate me after I tell him my destination which is typically about 30 to 40 minutes away from where I live. These picky cabbies usually reason out that they need to fetch some regular customer, or that his unit’s fuel wouldn’t last to reach the destination or that his taxi suddenly needs some repairs.

I do not let these types of taxi drivers ruin my mornings though. I just silently get off the cab, take a glance as it speeds off and reminds myself that the universe operates on the law of karma.

Three years of riding a cab, however, has given me that special instinct of picking the right place at the right time to get a taxi. As soon as I leave home and step out in the streets, I always get that feel for how the taxi situation would be for that day.

I normally sit in the front passenger seat. I think doing so makes the taxi driver feel at ease with me -- I try to send the impression that I’m treating the cabbie as my equal, as opposed to sitting at the back seat which probably signals bossiness and arrogance to the driver. I think regular male cab riders like me prefers to take the front instead of the back seat.

How I socialize with my morning cabdriver is usually indicative of how my whole day would be.

The MRT Extension Project

The construction of the MRT Extension along the stretch of Epifanio delos Santos Avenue (EDSA) from North Edsa to Monumento has added at least twenty minutes to my daily commute to work.

Looking at the pictures I took this morning, the contractor, DMCI-First Balfour, has not built yet any of the structures that would form the (at least) five additional stations, and yet motorists have now been experiencing traffic slowdown at the expected chokepoints where the stations will be erected, notably that part in Balintawak fronting the public market where day in and day out you can see a number of policemen rounding up color-coding violators (don't they have anything better to do and know that they contribute much to the friggin' slow traffic especially during rush hours just by being there?).

The Munoz-Edsa intersection is also beginning to be a bottleneck when vehicle volume starts to increase because of the friggin' uneducated, selfish bus and jeepney drivers who have this inclination of transforming a corner of a high or major road into a parking lot. No reason to wonder why this country's development is so slow -- just observe the drivers of public utility vehicles: our roads are the national stages of our culture of 'oneupmanship' (makaisa lang) and corruption.

The project began in the last quarter last year and it is scheduled to be completed in May 2010 (just in time for the eventual exit of Macapagal-Arroyo, or so we hope).

I expect that my daily trip to my place of work would become a horrible experience in the coming months.

Dawn of a New Leadership for a New Age

I stayed up really late last night to watch the whole President Obama’s inauguration ceremony. CNN hosts and commentators and all Americans were proud in showcasing such peaceful transfer of power. That made me think of how we do such a thing here in the country and loath this Arroyo administration even more.

Personally, highlights of the day were, of course, the new President’s inaugural speech, which the TV hosts said was full of conviction, and Elizabeth Alexander’s reading of her poem.

I thought President Obama was referring to leaders like Arroyo when he said in his address:

“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

And what gall on the part of Arroyo that she conducted a press conference to deliver a sort of an achievement speech on the same day of Obama’s inauguration.

You, Arroyo, as with Bush, is done and gone.

Anyway, I noticed that the crowd was entranced while Alexander was presenting her poem. There was something in the way she read it that the atmosphere in the entire National Mall became calm and eerie. And all of it was punctuated by the lightheartedness that followed after The Reverend Dr. Joseph E. Lowery delivered his ‘benediction’.

The day was perfect for the dawn and ushering in of a new leadership in this New Age for the Americans and the Free World.