Riding buses in Metro Manila is an interesting experience. It keeps you grounded. You get to ride with people that's extremely different from each other, from bank tellers to hard labor workers, to call-center agents to bored 9-to-5ers, a busride somehow acts as some sort of an equalizer to a palpably unequal society.
The weirdest shit I've seen during a busride happend early this year, around late January. There was this female call-center agent who got punched in the head by the female bus conductor. First of all, female bus conductors (those who sell tickets) are rare. Second, the physical commotion happened moments after I boarded the bus which was on the corner of Taft Avenue and Gil Puyat Avenue in Pasay and Makati's border.
Anyway, the verbal tussle between the female passenger and female bus conductor apparently started when the former was insisting she had paid her fare already. The latter was vehemently denying this and was creatively cursing in Filipino, curses which I honestly think don't have any English counterparts but them curses were very very intense in meaning, if you get my drift. Then the bus conductor began giving the female call-center agent a beatdown, an intense one. It was bad. I couldn't believe the other passengers were not doing anything about the situation. Maybe they were just minding their own business. As impossible as it may seem, I think there could have been at least a witness to the situation if the female call-center agent had paid her fare or not but no one was stepping up to alleviate the tension. Eventually, I've had enough of the uncalled-for violence and I tried to pacify the bus conductor and told her to calm down. After about a couple more punches, she miraculously stopped.
The female call-center agent then began telling the conductor that she had indeed paid her fare already and the former flashed her company/employer's ID to the latter to prove that she has integrity and has paid already. But the bus conductor wouldn't have any of it. On a side note, I think the call-center chick had lost her ticket already, for some reason.
Two blocks or so later, the call-center agent left. Minutes after she had left, the bus conductor was still as pissed as shit.
I paid my fare moments before the aforementioned confrontation occurred. When I finally arrived at my stop on Ayala Avenue in Makati, the bus conductor asked me if I had paid my fare already. I showed her my ticket and she looked at it with distrust screaming from her face. I left the bus unscathed from any violence, verbally or otherwise.
I think a degree of injustice happened that day.
The female call-center agent then began telling the conductor that she had indeed paid her fare already and the former flashed her company/employer's ID to the latter to prove that she has integrity and has paid already. But the bus conductor wouldn't have any of it. On a side note, I think the call-center chick had lost her ticket already, for some reason.
Two blocks or so later, the call-center agent left. Minutes after she had left, the bus conductor was still as pissed as shit.
I paid my fare moments before the aforementioned confrontation occurred. When I finally arrived at my stop on Ayala Avenue in Makati, the bus conductor asked me if I had paid my fare already. I showed her my ticket and she looked at it with distrust screaming from her face. I left the bus unscathed from any violence, verbally or otherwise.
I think a degree of injustice happened that day.
No comments:
Post a Comment