Here are some tips I’d like to share with my fellow sufferers:
1. Text and call.
It’s the time to send text messages or make calls that you should have done earlier but were not able to do because you were attending to some other things.
After an hour,you would have accomplished a lot. Time not wasted.
2. Count your blessings. Think of worse situations that you and your friends had been in and survived.
Last July 4, my colleagues in VERA Files treated Mikha Flores, who covered Comelec for us last election and was joining Businessworld.
I left Las Pinas before 5 p.m. and got to Baclaran about 6 p.m. I took a taxi hoping to be at Greenhills, where we were treating Mikha, in an hour.
That was not to be so because from EDSA Magallanes, vehicles were crawling. It took me more than two hours to travel the estimated eight- kilometer distance.
During that agonizing trip, I told myself, the perwisyo that I was going through was nothing compared to the ordeal experienced by my friend, Angie Miranda, Fitness First personal trainer, last June 13, when thousands got stranded after a heavy downpour turned Metro Manila streets into a lake.
From MOA, it took Angie more than one hour to get to the Laguna bus terminal in Pasay, a distance that would usually take about 20 minutes on a normal day with a flowing traffic. At the terminal, Angie said there was a long queue for the buses that were not coming, probably stuck in the traffic.
Angie said she was able to board in the fourth bus. She was standing all the way to Laguna throughout the trip that took almost two hours.
I had no reason to complain, I told myself in the middle of the gridlock. I’m in an air-conditioned taxi, getting the day’s news via TV Patrol, with the taxi driver giving his pro-US views on the plan of the government to allow access to American troops to the country’s military facilities.
3. Pray the rosary.
By the time I completed the whole Sorrowful Mystery, traffic after Guadalupe somewhat eased up. I don’t know if it was God’s answer to my prayers. I got to Greenhills past 8 pm. Dinner was good.
If you have your own tips on surviving Metro Manila traffic, please share.
Ellen, another tip: download movies in your cellphone.You can complete watching a whole movie in the more than two hours that you are stuck in the traffic.
These are some of the suggestions posted in Yahoo:
Gandang Miriam
Ha rosary? eh ang ginagawa ko naglalaro na lang candy crush sa biyahe!!!
Egg n’ hotdog
Take a nap while stuck in traffic jam. By the time you wake up, you get a good rest you deserve after a long tiring day from work and you are full of energy when you arrive home. And you will spend a good quality time with family.
More from Yahoo commenters:
Alfie:
Nice article. i have some more tips to share:
(1) have something to read (newspaper, novel, textbook, etc.);
(2) be VERY interested in people, listening to others’ jokes, stories, etc. while inside the jeepney, bus, or to a taxi driver’s stories while inside his taxi (as related in the article), will make time fly so quickly;
(3) plan your day (if the traffic is longer, plan your week);
(4) enjoy the Metro Manila view (along Makati, the tall buildings; along Cubao, the people coming from and going to the provinces; along Monumento, Mandaluyong, the malls; and everywhere, people, people, people – imagine you’re sitting at a Paris cafe watching nice people go by).
Al, I just downloaded Despicable Me 1. I watched Despicable me 2 and I enjoyed it very much.
Pang-erase ng stress in a traffic jam.
Trapiko, isang level ng inferno ni Dan Brown sa Greater Manila Area.
More reactions from Yahoo:
Brian Jeffrey Moreno:
I am a teacher. Traffic along Ortigas Avenue was terrible everyday. One day, I thought of checking papers whil stuck in traffic. I finished three sections of 40 students. hahaha! 🙂
Swiper:
There’s no use in being angry in traffic. It won’t make your travel faster.Otherwise, it can be a one-way ticket to prison if you do something regrettable.
Read a book or newspaper or watch a movie or tv if there’s one in the vehicle, specially in aircon buses.
Hi Ellen, what’s the link for your yahoo site? Thanks.
Chi,
Here :
http://ph.news.yahoo.com/blogs/the-inbox/keep-sanity-stuck-metro-manila-traffic-161737195.html
All the traffic alleviation programs of the govt did not work. Over pass, under pass, mass transit, nothing worked to ease the problem. They just became bottle necks. I am beginning to wonder if it was designed that way to force you to pay to corporate interest. What a waste of money and time. You want to lessen your travel time, you have to pay international rates to use the tollways. I pay 1/2 the minimum wage in NCR for toll fees a day. Taking the service road is not an option. There has to be an alternative to EDSA and C5 is not it. Plan to see another skyway in EDSA. $ka$Ching, $$ka$ching!!
I think the main reason for Metro Manila’s perennial traffic woes is the big number of vehicles (both public and private) particularly during rush hours that could not simply fit in the cramped roads. Metro Manila’s population density (and accordingly vehicle density) is one of the highest, if not the highest, in the world. Any solution should consider also moving big public/private offices, universities, bus stations, malls to nearby provinces (Bulacan, Pampanga, Cavite).
Thanks, Ellen… bibista ako dun.
MM is a poorly planned urban development. In comparison it is the same size as Metro Toronto (650 sq km) but population wise, it is 4 times more (15 millions to 3)without the publicly supported mass transit, multiple lanes highways, and provincial government mass transport to move people from outlying communities to and from the Metropolis.
It will not get any better unless economics and industries will be moved out of MM to other Metropolis with supporting infras and services. MM has already reached its point of diminishing return.