Names on the Pavements

Road trips are always the best trips when it comes to traveling. Aside from the cool breeze gently touching your cheek, you get a clearer view of nature’s beauty at its best. But the breeze may be so inviting to a sleep. You get an A-plus when you can stay awake through the trip despite the long distance.

I, travel the same route of hundreds of kilometers in reaching the city and back the forth. It is no doubt that my eyelids tend to shut off somewhere in between that hour and a half. But now that elections are coming to a close, the things that keep me awake are the names on the pavements.

These are not names with R.I.Ps and a cross above it. I believe the season for that has passed a week ago. Instead, these names are those who call credit for infrastructure done as if it was bailed out from their own pockets.

The law mandates every Filipino citizen to pay tax. There are types of taxes masked in a façade that even unemployed citizens get to pay. A classic example of this is the E-VAT where your every purchase contributes 12% from it to the country’s treasury. The national budget is taken from the country’s treasury so technically, everything we see belongs to the people.

But some misunderstand this mechanism. No wonder there has been a move from the senate to push for an anti-epal­ bill.

(c) sdumalay.blogspot.com

For many of us Cebuanos, epal is not on our dictionary or even in the context of slang but for the purpose of this piece we can contextualize epal to patagad.

According to those who believe, placing your names on the pavements is more than an advertising campaign put together by the best team even if the advert is painted with the best multimedia tools available.

The logic is simple: They grab people’s attention, are remembered, and is sure to have a vote come election period on May 2013.

The lines for the registration have closed a few days back. News reports say that there has been a surge of applicants who are interested to vote. They blame the offices for not giving an extension when in fact, registration have been on-going since last year.

The sudden rise of registered voters becomes a potential market for those who intend to stay in office noting that new voters believe by what they see. Hence the saying, “What you see, is what you get.”

However, no matter how hard we try to see the picture in a clear view, the ulterior motive is wrong.

This ill purpose is out to get your vote because those who wish to run do not simply believe in themselves. As complicated the world of politics may be, when confidence is lost the ways to regain this may resort to a tactic which is unworthy of.

COMELEC says that there is a proper time for campaign. But some fellows are uneasy, they want the sure ball even as early as now. Yet, we cannot shun away from these names and even faces as we go by the streets.

For some, seeing ironic faces and names on the pavements have become a nuisance.  Instead of directly benefiting from the project, we start to act like we owe whoever on the pavement.

They say that infrastructure speaks of the level of progress in a place. It is the marker in every society that development has taken place. The Philippines has a lot with abundance and probably of the best quality.

So I guess the ride home would leave me awake for a bit. Unless those who patagad remove themselves from pavements, then  my rides home and back and forth will always be on the lookout for those who take advantage.

**First published in The Freeman newspaper on November 6, 2012