The Domino Effect

If you have a domino set at home, try this activity: On a level area, make the domino pieces individually stand on its length. Make them stand equidistant from each other at about three-fourths of its length away from the next piece. After erecting a couple of pieces, knock down the lead domino towards the others in the line and watch them fall one by one. Technically, it’s called the "Domino Effect" and theorists apply this principle to a chain reaction that produces a negative effect.

An example of the Domino Effect is when your boss’ rotten kids infuriate his nagging wife, who then fights with your boss, who goes to the office and then scolds your manager, who then takes it out on his assistant, who then lashes out at your supervisor, who then takes it out on you. You go home with a temper, have a fight with your wife (or husband), who then unreasonably scolds your kids, who eventually grow up as rotten as your boss’ kids. One negative action causes another and the effect eventually goes down the line with the last recipient not knowing why or how everything started. They just get toppled like dominos.

It wouldn’t take much to see that the Domino Effect is currently affecting our lives. Just look outside your car window (or jeepney, bus, FX or taxi window if you’re taking the public transport) and you’ll see it.

A jeepney drives on the opposite lane, counter-flowing on a road with two yellow stripes in the middle and then stops at the intersection. Seeing a gap in the crossing traffic, the jeepney driver drives across even when the light is red. He then swerves maniacally to load or unload a passenger in the middle of the road, obstructing other vehicles. He has actually violated a number of traffic laws but in his simpleton, one-track mind, the jeepney driver is doing nothing wrong — he’s just making a living, trying to get around his route in the shortest time possible to get more passengers and augment his meager income. To further scrimp on expenses, he drives without headlights at night in the mistaken belief that it will stretch the life of his vehicle’s batteries and headlights, thus stretching his money. He is completely ignorant of the bad influence he has left on his passengers and other road users.

Jeepney and other PUV drivers wantonly violate traffic laws because they normally get away with it, unless they get flagged down by a PNP police officer, who is the only enforcer that they respect because these cops carry a real gun. But, fortunately for the PUV driver (and unfortunately for law-abiding road users), the PNP does not really manage traffic anymore — they just go after suspected carnapers and not after habitual traffic violators, making the moniker "Traffic Management Group" relatively inutile. To make matters worse, some PNP cops are jeepney operators themselves, thus errant jeepney drivers often just get a slap on the wrist out of respect for their cop-owners.

So, it’s now the MMDA and the local government traffic enforcers manning the traffic but unfortunately, they can’t work together, much less coordinate with each other. At times, they even contradict one another. This lack of cooperation gives habitual traffic offenders the opportunity to ignore them. And because the traffic enforcers also lack the training and the equipment — radios, vehicles, night sticks — PUV drivers and lately, a growing number of private car drivers, just drive past them when they flag these down. Armed with only their uniform because traffic citation tickets and police motorcycles are limited, these traffic enforcers are often ignored, unless they work as a group, flag down a violator and threaten to gang up on him if he resists. That’s the only time they can actually command respect from errant drivers — when they act like goons.

However, looking from the point of view of the traffic enforcer (I’ve stopped to chat with a lot of them) most of them feel that their job is a meaningless one. Most drivers disregard them and when they gather the guts to legally flag down an offender, they are either waved off, blasted with a siren or threatened with an angry "Kilala mo ba kung sino ako?! (Do you know who I am?!)" and shown a Press, Media, Senate, Congress, Office of the President, Office of the Vice President, PNP, TMG, LTO, DOTC, some Cause-Oriented or Civic Action Group ID card or sticker. The hapless enforcer doesn’t even have the means or the training to tell if these things are authentic; much less determine if the sirens or those "8", "10", "16", "Mayor", "Councilor" and "Lawyer" plates are valid on some cars. Most traffic violators run away from the enforcers while some offenders even run over the poor enforcers, most of whom do not have personal insurance.

Thus, traffic discipline has badly deteriorated because traffic enforcement has become lax. Due to the lack of continuous training and motivation, many enforcers have become indifferent, and like the violators they should be apprehending, have become ignorant of the traffic laws they were supposed to enforce. Since traffic laws are being violated with impunity, even private motorists and other road users are becoming indifferent and ignorant as well, developing a "me too" attitude that wrongly suggests that "if others are doing it, why shouldn’t I?" In any case, the national traffic discipline is actually getting worse and it might turn chaotic if not corrected soon.

With traffic mostly at a snails pace, fuel consumption of even the most fuel efficient of economy cars is abhorrent. After all, even if your car can do 70 kilometers to a liter on the highway, it does zero kilometers per liter once it gets stuck in traffic. Coupled with the unstable fuel prices, a lot of motorists spend more on fuel and transportation expenses than they can afford to, forcing them to cut down on other expenses. By cutting down on purchases of other consumer products, many businesses are affected, workers lose their jobs and the economy generally slows down. The chaotic traffic discipline clearly has a Domino Effect on the national economy.

This law-breaking, excuse-making attitude and emerging indifference for order influenced by the seemingly wanton violation of everyday traffic laws has influenced the entire public service system as well.

Open your faucets and the water that comes out is not potable, if at all, any water comes out. Do the people at the "privatized" government water agencies care? Not on your life. Try calling them up to complain and they’ll just conjure up some lousy excuse or worse, completely ignore you. In the mean time, contractors dig up the road for some pipe-laying, water-improvement project and then leave their diggings behind or patch them up with a flimsy layer of asphalt or concrete. Do they care if this adds to the worsening traffic situation, especially when their patch-up roadwork deteriorates into potholes? After all, these contractors have never been held liable for traffic snarls and accidents caused by their diggings.

Consequently, do these contractors know that their diggings and shoddy patchwork collect stagnant water that becomes a nesting ground for mosquitoes? Recently, a number of children in the metropolis have died because of Dengue Fever. In response, the Department of Health released an alert while some LGUs have intensified their fumigation drives to eliminate the deadly mosquitoes. Nobody cared to look at factors that allowed the Dengue mosquitoes to proliferate because the official response is often reactive instead of proactive. Will these actions comfort the suffering parents who lost their kids to the deadly disease, which was supposed to have been eradicated in our highly urbanized cities several years ago?

A freak rain storm flooded most of the city last September 9 stranding thousands of commuters, inundating some homes and affecting hundreds of families. The authorities blamed it on the freak weather but conveniently overlooked factors that led to the flooding, including the misplaced debris of contractors’ diggings. Instead, they will predictably mobilize the MMDA Flood Control unit, who will predictably go on a dredging spree, which will predictably tie up traffic and predictably, not really solve the perennial flooding problem. Does anyone really care, except perhaps for those affected families who have to adapt to the floods whenever it rains? Or perhaps those officials and contractors who stand to earn a lot of money from these infernal and ineffective dredging operations?

Whatever happened to the code of conduct that states "Public Service is a Public Trust"? Have these people — the jeepney and PUV drivers, the police, the traffic managers and enforcers, the employees at the water company, health officers, flood control authorities, government contractors and the like — forgotten that they are there to serve the general public, and not just to earn money? Have they become so greedy or needy that they have forgotten that it’s the public that feeds them either through fares, monthly payments or taxes? Has graft and corruption become so commonplace that even rank-and-file public servants act like their bosses who act callously like the public should serve them?

Because of the growing public disservice, many of our better professionals opt to migrate and try their luck in other countries not only because they want to earn more but more so because they’ve lost hope that Philippine public service will actually improve in their, or even their children’s, lifetime. Sadly, our country suffers from a lack of intellectual strength, as well as dedication and commitment, with the migration of these professionals, who could have contributed more to our development other than being an OFW remitting some dollars that will be unwisely spent here.

All these misfortunes actually started years ago when unscrupulous and powerful government officials developed vested interests that placed self before public service. Left unchecked over the years, genuine public service deteriorated tolerated by a cowed public and abetted by a self-serving media that catered more to sensationalism than to nationalism. They were the "lead dominos" that started the degradation of the Filipino way of life. Their disservice not only affected their constituents and their immediate surroundings at the time, but like the Domino Effect, it affected all of us eventually. And it still haunts us today.

Just look outside your car window (or jeepney, bus, FX or taxi window if you’re taking the public transport) and you’ll see it. Unless, of course, your windows are heavily tinted and you’re part of the domino line perpetuating injustice and disservice to the people.

Here are some Backseat Driver reactions and comments from last week…

The MMDA should continue removing wrongly and irresponsibly erected billboards. — 09276346917

Why are there tricycles along Katipunan Avenue when they are not allowed to be here? What is the MMDA doing? — 09178531454

Turtles — slow moving trucks and vans — are allowed to stay in the passing lane of C-5 and SLEX. This causes traffic and inconveniences other motorists. — 09164164576

I hope the authorities will do something about the loud, glazing horns and sound systems in jeepneys plying the Eastern Rizal roads. — 09178259913

Why can’t the MMDA, police and traffic enforcers apprehend drivers who don’t turn off their headlights at night? — 09178531454

The by-pass road to the Cavite Export Zone needs repair, badly. Nakakahiya sa mga foreign investors. — 09165885780

Speak out, be heard and keep those text messages coming in. To say your piece and become a "Backseat Driver", text PHILSTAR<space>FB<space>MOTORING<space>YOUR MESSAGE and send to 2840 if you’re a Globe or Touch Mobile subscriber or 334 if you’re a Smart or Talk ’n Text subscriber or 2840 if you’re a Sun Cellular subscriber. Please keep your messages down to a manageable 160 characters. You may send a series of comments using the same parameters.