An open letter to the next President of the Philippines

In the first three weeks of the new year, we have heard about the untimely death of several young ones inside a burning vehicle, a truck plowing into a restaurant, and a couple of buses being involved in mishaps.

Yes, it is sad and we know that you would extend your condolences. You may even post in your Instagram that your heart goes out to their families.

But what is really in your heart? Do you put the blame on the drivers for being sleepy, or for driving too fast, or in the case of the teenagers, taking their parent’s car without permission?

Do you criticize those who were not trained enough to handle such equipment, or do you realize that there is indeed a problem in our country in terms of road safety?

You might also say that road safety is not a priority because there are hundreds of bigger problems that need solving in the country.

You have poverty, the horrendous traffic, cities that are beleaguered with calamities, the increasing population, the decline of talent in the country, sickness, quarrelling politicians, territorial disputes, lack of accountability, and of course—one that is very dear to your heart—how to make sure you don’t land in jail after your term.

But you can’t say this to a mother who just lost a child because one bus driver was speeding up to make sure he is able to meet boundary and get enough money to his family.

You can’t say this to a father who lost his soon-to-be magna cum laude daughter because a drunk driver was allowed to drive, yet there was no one to enforce the law.

You can’t tell this to the parents of the six kids whose untimely death could have been avoided if the

emergency protocols were in place and if the police who were on the scene knew what to do, instead of just letting those kids die.

All possible solutions have already been brought to the table. Yet no one seems to want to implement them because the only people who would benefit from them is the citizenry.

For example, follow the examples of First World countries and put all modes of transportation under government regulation, where the drivers follow a shift and get a standard salary.

Train your police, traffic and emergency people as well. Have harsher laws, and consistently enforce these.

Increase the wages of those tasked to enforce the laws so they don’t need to make a living out of those who really need to be punished.

But most important of all is to include driver/road-user education in the curriculum of schools. This would make more disciplined road users, people who understand what the law is all about.

Instill in the youth the importance of following the speed limit and of why they shouldn’t drink and drive. Having 30 minutes to memorize the answer key to a driving test or installing road signs in the test room are not enough for people to understand why an airbag would kill you if you are not wearing a seatbelt or why having coffee after a drinking bout would not make you sober when you drive.

I hope that in your next six years in office, you can simply ask the head of the Department of Transportation and Communications and the Department of Education to prioritize the solving of the problem.

There are a lot of sectors in this industry that have their own simple way in addressing this concern. All you have to do is follow their lead, put a budget into educating the road user, and surely enough even if your infrastructure is not in place, traffic will ease a bit.

Drivers will learn to stick to their lanes, and be patient enough not to counterflow. And passengers will learn not to board the bus or jeepney where it will cause traffic jams.

Dear future President, I quote a line from Thomas More’s “Utopia”: “For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”

We all blame those errant drivers and road user for being uneducated, for not knowing where to cross or what the road signs mean, when it is our government that has made them that way.

We give out driver’s license to ineligible individuals, thinking they would automatically learn how to drive safely when they see their faces on the plastic card, but what actually happens is we are giving them a license to kill.

I wish you no ill but I hope you won’t realize the importance of this issue via a phone call in the middle of the night informing you that one of your loved ones lost his life because one irresponsible driver thought that after several drinks, he could still drive home.

Sincerely yours,

A concerned mother

For comments and suggestions, please e-mail me at jnt@chicdriven.com or follow @chicdriven on Instagram and Twitter or like Facebook/chicdriven.