Pull Over

Last week a group of policemen motioned to stop the taxi I was in. A routine checkpoint. Were they suspicious of my baby goatee? We were at the rather dim intersection near Banawe Street, right before the orthopedic hospital and the thriving, brightly-lit hub of coffee shops, Chinese teahouses, and populated automotive shops.

My heart stopped when the policemen rapped on my passenger window instead of on the driver’s. They opened the door, seized my grey shoulder bag, and examined its contents with contained fury.

“Nothing explosive in here, boy?” one of them said. His voice was somewhat friendly yet condescending.

“No, sir; nothing at all,” I replied, like a wimp. Nothing that you hadn’t planted yet, you idiot. All I was carrying in that bag were paperbacks, notebooks, CDs, and file folders, plus a number of broken ball pens. I had left my laptop computer in the mall for repair, thank goodness, for they might as well have held me up for possession of explosive lithium ion batteries.

“A student,” the policeman concluded after his search. “No one dangerous.” A second policeman nodded and pointed his powerful flashlight right to my face. The audacity!

That night I did look collegiate in many respects, notwithstanding my quarter-aged scowl. I was wearing a black shirt (chattering teeth printed on it), faded denim jeans, and a three-year old pair of sneakers. But I’d be a fool to flatter myself by believing other fools.

The incident brings me to another story about another officer, this time from the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA). He was posted along the main highway EDSA, near a train station called Guadalupe. I can’t now remember his name because I don’t even know it. And since I don’t know the traffic enforcers’ schedules either, a different person is likely now at the spot, waiting on either a violator or a prey. In any case, traffic seems impossibly worse in the vicinity of these nameless officers.

On my way with colleagues to a crucial press conference for which we were already running late, this officer asked us to pull over for no reason related to any of the traffic regulations decreed in this country. I was sure of this; he thought otherwise (”You swerved to the right where you shouldn’t have,” was his fabrication). But we preferred to sidestep a possible confrontation and avoid the hassle of paperwork, and by that, I mean of course we gave him his lunch money.

These aren’t the nicest, most expat-friendly stories. Like any other place in the world, Manila has its own share of monkey business going on the road. Not that there’s solace in justifying it, nor justification in telling it, but sometimes attention simply needs to be paid to things which the city could definitely do without. (If you have to ask, we didn’t make it in time for the conference.)

I can’t think of any other solution to this than what my thesis adviser at the university once told the class. “Leave for your destination two hours if you estimate your trip will take one.” Now musing upon the futility of it all, because some “authority” might pull you over whenever and howsoever he wishes, I’m thinking that the police officer and I are both glad - and for completely different reasons - that I don’t remember his name.