There Goes The Neighborhood

 

Pentax MZ3 + SMCP FA 80-320/4.5-5.6 + Ilford XP2 Super

Ever since I moved into Quezon City in 1994, the immediate neighborhood I lived in was notoriously known for power outages (FWIW: that area is from the where National Bookstore along Quezon Ave., crossing Times St. towards where I live in Bulletin St., West Triangle).  Even without any apparent reason--weather disturbances or known power supply problems--the lights go off.  It is especially annoying, because when it happens at night, it becomes apparent that a block away in all directions, the lights are still on.

So you call and you complain; but it has been that way ever since.  Then a neighbor becomes the president of the Philippines and stubbornly insist on not moving in to Malacañang Palace.  Within a week after his inauguration in the end of June 2010, the lights went off again.  I consoled myself with the fact that the new president of the Philippines is also in darkness--a fact he conveniently makes known in the next press conference!

What happens next is amusing, and at the same time, annoying.

Today, a battalion of linesmen, service crew and mid/top level supervisors in trucks with lifts of Manila Electric Company literally replaces the wiring of the neighborhood!

It is amusing, because it takes a neighbor with the status of the president of the Philippines to get things finally fixed (it rained heavily later in the day so that was the test if things were really fixed).

It is annoying, because it takes a neighbor with the status of the president of the Philippines to get things finally fixed.  This simply belies the fact that in our psyche, power and prestige is what ultimately get things done.  Perhaps, if there is anything to be learned from President Noynoy's inauguration speech is that we are to be treated as presidents--"Kayo ang Boss ko!" ("you are my boss").

By that declaration, he puts into perspective what it means to be a civil servant, which until now has been an oxymoron.  Maybe now, if we treated each one as the president of the Philippines, something changes in this country.

 

Pentax MZ3 + SMCP FA 24-90/3.5-5.6 AL (IF) + Ilford XP2 Super