Honey, I saved the bears

Netnet Camomot

“GET the honey and save the bears.” Simple instruction, eh? Wait till you start playing Candy Crush Soda Saga and notice it’s indeed a saga. It could take you months to finish a level until you quit and realize what the instruction meant in the first place: Get your honey and let him save the bears. Your knight in shining armor. Insert your damsel in distress’s goo-goo eyes here. Sigh.

Cagayan de Oro’s traffic czar must be going through the same ordeal. People are looking from the outside, asking, Why can’t he solve the city’s traffic problem? They see the maze, they see erring drivers, they see cars parked here, there, and everywhere, and—voila!—they believe they can solve the problem in 3, 2, 1…

Well, easy for them to say!

But it has been, hmmm, 1, 2, 3 long years since the traffic czar took over. Am I right or am I wrong on this one? I’ve never been that good in Math, so my calculation of the years could be wrong.

But if my calculation is right, then he has had three years of also looking at the traffic problem. And that’s not from the outside but from the inside. He has the power to say, Hey, we gotta solve this, we have to look for the best people to solve this, we can do this!

Yet, there I was on Wednesday night, stuck in traffic at Masterson Avenue, chose not to join the cars packed like sardines around the Rodelsa Circle, thus, turned towards Tomas Saco Street on my way to a meeting. But there was traffic along that long and winding route, made me promise never to join the fray again during rush hours.

I already had a headache in the afternoon, and it worsened before I could reach the meeting venue. Whew. Had to emulate John Lloyd Cruz—took one tablet of his favorite paracetamol before leaving the house, another one at the meeting, and the third one upon arriving home. The third proved to be a charm, finally banishing the headache to Siberia, and convincing me that my idol Lloydie is the bestest actor this country has ever had.

Playing a Candy Crush level over and over again can give you a lot of practice. And headaches. But you learn along the way—plan, strategize, look for the exact level in YouTube because surely there’s at least one video there teaching you how to survive through this, provided it’s the exact same arrangement of candies. But there’s no exact whatever in this game. You have to deal with the candies that are given to you.

Those three years of traffic “czarship” could also give you a lot of practice. And headaches. And you also learn along the way—dealing with politicians, dealing with politics, dealing with budget constraints those politicians could punish you with because of politics. And giving that as an excuse for the traffic can be tempting. And you have to stop yourself before giving that as an excuse. Yup, it’s the easiest way out of the mess, if only that can also serve as the easiest way out of the traffic jam itself.

Blaming others never saves us from anything and it only wastes our time. We are the outsiders in this game, we are merely watching the traffic problem as a spectator sport. The clock will continue to tick-tock with or without the blame game. Add a slap to that, no thanks to a city councilor, and there we are now focusing on the chicken-egg query: Which came first, the councilor’s traffic violation, or his slapping the face of the traffic enforcer who issued the traffic-citation ticket? Tsk tsk. Or should that be, Cluck cluck. Or, Crow crow. Yes, we’re trying to decipher the most appropriate sound effects for a chicken. Might as well buy kwek-kwek, the egg wrapped in flour and deep-fried to its yummiest perfection, to help us see one more obvious cause of CDO’s traffic mess: street vendors.

Even Senator Grace Poe has noticed the traffic when she was stuck in one on the way to her latest speaking engagement here. If I remember right, she even pointed this out to Mayor Oscar Moreno. She should remember that her campaign buses also caused traffic here when her presidentiable mode was at its highest level.

But miracles do happen, as proven—no, not the chicken street food—by yesterday’s celebration of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Imagine, family planning gone awry, no thanks to a conception that doesn’t require sleeping together. Hmmm. You don’t exactly sleep while doing it. OK, you get the idea if you’ve been there, done that, and is now “like a virgin” a la Madonna. And, of course, that Madonna is not the one in Madonna and Child.

Well, at least one miracle seems to work, too, for CDO’s traffic as it obeys, “Go forth and multiply,” with all the others also following its example: Cars have gone forth and multiplied, erring drivers have gone forth and multiplied, street vendors have gone forth and multiplied.

The traffic czar was given the responsibility of solving the problem three years ago, and he continues to have that responsibility. We know, deep in our hearts, that solutions are also brewing in his heart, that he’s not taking the problem lightly, and he also goes through the traffic mess each time he drives around the city. He has three more years, that is, if no one listens to the citation-ticketed city councilor who’s now campaigning for his ouster.

An observer said, It’s the city’s narrow streets, stupid. And the stupid there refers to us, the outsiders in this game.

There are new roads under construction, and we remain hopeful that will help the traffic czar until we can all say, You saved the bears!

Meanwhile, playing Candy Crush has inspired me to snack on sweets: choco-covered cookies, honey roasted peanuts, strawberry yogurt, and nata de coco pudding. Yum! But did all these help me save the bears?