The real killer is selfishness

Killer Highway. No it is not a new Stephen King novel, rather it is the moniker that has been given to Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City where death, destruction and mayhem are as routine and mundane as the rising of the morning sun. This roadway of death is a daily reality for my family and me because it forms part of our regular commute to both school and work. From our home in Fairview, Commonwealth Avenue is the main traffic artery on the way to EDSA. So every day, before I leave home, I pray for my safety and that of my family, grit my teeth, and drive cautiously through this highway of death.

A few days ago the nation mourned the death of well-respected UP professor and journalist Chit Estella. The headlines decried her death, which was caused when her taxi was rammed by a speeding bus along Commonwealth Avenue. The media attention given to the tragic demise of a fellow journalist underscored the fact that many ordinary Filipinos had similarly died along Commonwealth Avenue but their deaths had gone unheralded, perhaps because they were not influential, wealthy, or well-connected.

Of course, one of the vagaries of the human condition is that we don’t know how our end will come. And, sure, accidents occur on a daily basis. However, the more that I think about it, the more it becomes unmistakable that the real cause for many of the deaths along Commonwealth Avenue is pure and simple selfishness. Selfishness, which is being concerned only for one’s welfare or advantage to the detriment or disregard of others, is one of the most dangerous and destructive human qualities. As you deconstruct the causes for the numerous vehicular accidents and killings of pedestrians along Commonwealth Avenue, you realize that the accidents are most often a result of the many daily, small and random acts of selfishness undertaken along the highway:

1. The selfishness of the bus driver who thinks only of his commission in his frantic race to get passengers.

2. The selfishness of the jeepney driver who stops at any point of the street and who doesn’t care if his vehicle impedes the proper flow of traffic.

3. The selfishness of the sidewalk vendor who crosses the street instead of using the bridges and walkways in order to save a few minutes or as a result of laziness.

4. The selfishness of the MMDA officer who concentrates on catching cars violating the color coding scheme to get his daily “tong” or bribe instead of focusing on making traffic flow safely and smoothly.

5. The selfishness of the office drone who violates speed limits in order to get to his precious morning meeting with the CEO.

6. The selfishness of the motorcycle rider who weaves in and out of traffic, imagining himself to be Evil Knievel, narrowly escaping death but causing cars and buses to swerve to avoid hitting him.

7. The selfishness of the rich and the upper middle class who refuse to pay the proper taxes, taxes that could have been used to improve road conditions and to train traffic enforcers.

8. The selfishness of informal settlers, formerly called “squatters,” who build their shanties right beside the road and use the highway as their private backyard and trash bin.

9. The selfishness of local government officials and congressmen who pass through Commonwealth Avenue every day on their way to work but refuse to allot their pork barrel to useful projects like road improvement and instead use their funds for projects where they can get their standard “cut.”

10. The selfishness of the student who, in his rush to get to classes, refuses to queue up at the proper areas.

11. The selfishness of the government clerk who tells the bus to stop not at the designated areas for disembarkation just so that she doesn’t have to walk the extra 500 meters to get to her place of work.

12. The selfishness of the bus owners who allow the so-called “colorum” buses, often badly maintained and driven by incompetents, to use their franchises.

It is the commingling of all these seemingly small and random acts of selfishness that feeds the Killer Highway. People whose job is to scientifically study the phenomena of modern traffic claim that traffic behaves similarly to a living organism. Perhaps this is what has happened to the Killer Highway: it has become sentient, seeking human destruction and each individual’s selfish act becomes an offering to this roadway of death, empowering it to cause more harm and ruin.

Sadly, the random acts of selfishness are merely symptomatic of the utter lack of a sense of consideration for others, which afflicts so many Filipinos. We all go about the hustle and bustle of our lives completely oblivious to how our actions, both big and small, affect others. However, this lack of understanding of the real effects of one’s actions and intentions is dangerous because ultimately what we do — and fail to do — will always come back to haunt us. Misgovernance, corruption, underdevelopment, and the many other ills that afflict our nation are the result of our collective action and are the fruit of our own selfishness and unwillingness to take the necessary steps towards real change.

Finally, the painful truth is that all of us bear some responsibility for the daily tragedies that happen along the death highway. So Commonwealth Avenue is not the real killer highway of the Philippines. Instead, the true killer is the selfishness of many Filipinos.