RUBBING SHOULDERS

There is something valuable about riding public transport in Rural Balete. A jeepney ride offers the commuter perks that enliven his experience of humanity. In it, he is part of the whole. He rubs shoulders and body with the rest. He hears their stories. He smells their histories. He sees them as persons—not just individuals, and neither as statistics.

The jeepney is his public sphere. In it, he interacts with others through his daily commute and their quotidian worries. In it, the exigencies of life are shared. The jeepney is his community. In it, he belongs. He feels the others’ joys and struggles, the others’ victories and defeats, the others’ hopes and angsts, the others’ faith and disbelief.

Yesterday, I had the grand opportunity of commuting to Kalibo. I seldom take public transport these days. I am what others see as a privileged one, being placed on the high seat of power by local standards. I rub shoulders with the power-that-be. In a way, I am alienated from the common tao, from the ultimo, those who have least in life.

I seldom hear their stories and woes firsthand these days. I’m confined in the inner air-conditioned room, guarded by gatekeepers. Only the select can come to see me on a regular basis. My office has been appropriated and allotted to those who sought my advice or those who sought my intervention.

But yesterday, I had the wonderful opportunity of commuting. My travel was personal, not official. And I opted to commute. I don’t want to abuse the perks of a service vehicle. I want to reclaim my experience of rubbing shoulders with my fellowmen. I miss hearing their stories. I miss hearing them utter their unguarded tales, inflected in the sound of their language. There’s something different in their idioms, in the way they exchange words.

Yes. Yesterday, riding on a jeepney bound for Kalibo, I regained that heartwarming experience. As I rubbed shoulders with my fellow commuters, I listened to the tales of a woman behind me. She was addressing someone from her place. She was telling him about someone who was hospitalized and whose bills were now accumulating fast. She wondered where they would get the money to pay the bills. She talked also of a loanshark they happened to know. She said she was soulless. She said that she believed in gaba—karma. But the loanshark, she said, was not affected by it. It was her family that suffered because of her evil ways.

Kaeuoy ta ra mga unga nga nagaantus. She pities her children who suffered in her behalf. Sayod na gid ron. Sayod na gid ron. She emphasized it as if reciting a mantra.

Her words reminded me that the jeepney is not merely transport but a chapel of stories. In its cramped benches, we carry each other’s burdens, and in rubbing shoulders, we rub away the illusion of distance between privilege and struggle.