BEYOND 666: My Country’s Race to FIRST WORLD

Thursday, February 4, 2016

My Country’s Race to FIRST WORLD

ORTIGAS CENTER

(picture taken from the 4th floor of Megamall's parking)

If the building of infrastructure can be a measure of a nation’s growth, my country is racing to the stars. Everywhere I turn, I see skyscrapers inching to the skies, some of which are so tall that they seem to have reached the clouds. Notably, the mushrooming skyscrapers are sprouting everywhere, as if the ground, neglected for decades, is finally fertile for growth.

We complain incessantly about the traffic, but honestly, there are enough roads with elevated ones, which we appropriately call skyways, that are rising everywhere from the ground. I envision a future where the entire length of EDSA (equated with traffic) will be canopied by a skyway, while the subway mass transit system will be plying its underground routes. With bad, undisciplined drivers, though, no road will ever be enough for a booming can-afford-a-car middle class.

I wonder why, as we build more massive malls in the Metro, the number of people who congest them, patronize their signature shops, and fill their restaurants and movie houses increases. Where are these people coming from?

Condominium towers that used to be meant for the rich and famous are mushrooming everywhere, and the builders never run out of buyers.

Are Filipinos that wealthy, or are we just becoming newly rich with the young and the restless leading the race to a good life in the first century of the third millennium? I wonder…! Let no bad ‘next’ president spoil your dreams. Let’s keep racing to the stars…