OF COURSE, it’s NLEX, for lack of a better choice.
One thing it has apparently forgotten is that when there is a will, there is a way. And the reverse is true. Did I also say common sense? In between, that’s where its current knot with RFID-related problems incubated.
But I’m getting ahead of my gratitude.
When Ping de Jesus, the retiree but not retarded chair (not the rocking type) at CDC, was NLEX president, I got a free Easy Tag from him courtesy of Liza Carreon of the Tuesday Club in Manila plus a free load, It worked just fine. Liza made sure that I didn’t win in the club’s Christmas raffle after that.
I changed the tag to a new device later on, the Easy Trip, which my wife oftentimes teased me for mispronouncing as Easy Strip, not that I’d ever been to one, I swear.
This one, however, carries some voodoo-like ritual. At times, when it’s not in the mood, or the toll teller or the system, you had to move it left, right, up or down until you got the result which is when the guard tapped the box at the exit and, lo and behold, the bar cleared the magic wand.
It’s an old American trick, not the high-sounding tech it’s bruited about. One time, my pastor uncle’s car stopped in the middle of McArthur Highway in Balibago. It’s a big car like a tank and we had to sweat it out to push it out of the road. Then an American expat came along and saw what we’re dealing with. Without he being asked, he kicked the guzzler on the side and motioned my uncle to start the engine. He did ,and a thick, gray smoke enveloped the area.
Compared to RFID, which Rene Romero the super-rich grime buster head of PAMCHAM has rumored to have taken it to mean reverse, forward, idiotic device. the Easy Trip, was relatively easier.
If Ping were still head of NLEX, I suppose the company would not be in this fix. Ping would have in all probability quietly have fixed things before they got out of hand. Maybe that’s how the late Cory Aquino picked him to be as the country’s chief road and bridge builder. He can fix but is no fixer.
Ping’s reputation follows him. When he came to CDC, I was given an RFID electronic sticker, installed by NLEX p.r. men via Noel Tulabut who’s a dyed-in-the-wool MVP fan. And that’s when my issues with the one-arm bandit multiplied. Sometimes the metal bar didn’t budge even when my hood almost touched it. Sometimes, it overcharged, really overcharged. They assured me the error will be corrected in three weeks. It was more of a promise, I can tell you.
Eventually, after an eternity of stress, I decided to give it up and go back to the old, reliable easty strip, and being teased by my wife again for mispronouncing it.
To cut to the chase, I got back to RFID again after NLEX offered the sticker and toll free to frontline workers. My youngest daughter is a pharmacist. I grabbed the free lunch and additionaly prayed it would last at least until the remaing years of Duterte. In office, of course. The other issue is not my stuff.
And then, here we go again. Rox Pena, former Mabalacat councilor and probably future mayor, once told me of being overcharged. He didn’t bother to report or ask for refund. His executive is thought better spent in worthier cause than on frayed nerves over rigor mortis inefficiency. I chanced upon Manolo Feliciano of the Mabalacat College fulminating at a counter service counter at NLEX San Fernando after being rejected several times at exit points when he had still P3,000 in balance. I thought he would buy off NLEX there and then.
I drove my daughter to McKinley Hill the other day to pick his personal belongings after almost nine months of absence from her apartment due to the pandemic. No problem of at anything, whether south bound or north bound. The three Gatchalian brothers worked, tse-tse. I don’t mind more of their kind in government. Like Deng Siao Ping, I don’t care what the color of the cat is as long as it catches a shrewd mouse. But for some, it’s a big, no GO.
As a final word, I would recommend to NLEX people to have an ob-gyne diagnose their system. Based on the statement of an expert named Quimbo, who sounds like Harry the Spox., what’s happening at NLEX now is a result of birthpains. In that case, the NLEX system might be suffering from abnormal delivery, considering that the labor pains have already been felt, seen and reported for a long, long time.
Some people could be liable for malpractice
