Scooter Stop; just when you think you KNOW people...

Over the years, I’ve spoken a lot of disparaging words about the local gendarmes, mostly speaking to my bitterness towards their apparent dislike and resentment for us foreigners. But, sometimes I run into one or two that seem okay. I must emphasize, “seem,” because you just never know.

Late yesterday afternoon I was on my Chinese-made scooter chugging home up the back road towards my subdivision. I was just about to the gate when I saw a bevy of my favorite boys in blue situated on both sides of the street prominently carrying shotguns and assault rifles.

Immediately, I slowed down knowing that I was doubly in their sights; first, I was a foreigner and therefore an excellent shakedown candidate, and second, I was riding a cycle and cycles seem to be their preferred victim when it comes to checking for proper documentation.

Sure enough, when I was within 100 feet, one of the Philippine National Policemen put his hand up and waved me over with as much severe authority as he could muster. By that I mean glaring at me as if he was already convinced that I was a reprehensible criminal fit only for shooting on sight.

I’ve learned to suppress any sense of irritation at this continuous harassment, and that’s exactly what it is—a form of persecution. They rarely pull over cars, especially expensive cars with dark mirrored windows. No, they mostly go after cycles and scooters because they can easily see the operators. In other words, they don’t mess with people who might have “connections” and power. Those kinds of people don’t put up with the harassment, and with every bit of haughtiness that comes so easily to folks with power in these parts, they just throw it right back at the police who stopped them.

A large part of my irritation is that the same cops pull me over all the time. After all these years, I know that they know me, and they know I’m good to go. I always am, yet stop me they always do. I don’t know, maybe they just “like” me, or perhaps they just enjoy employing their power over me.

Years ago—only hours after the first time I was stopped—a different set of police pulled me over yet again. At the time, I hadn’t quite come to grips with how routine this process was going to be. In fact, if I had 5 bucks for every time I’ve been pulled over by either the PNP or LTO agents, I’d have a lot of 5-dollar bills for sure—dozens of them.

Anyway, that was then and I was irked, and unfortunately for me, I allowed my annoyance to come blazing through with a marked sullenness. Big mistake. The policemen counteracted my overt display of grouchiness with their own unconcealed exhibition of antagonistic power. I don’t know what I thought I was going to achieve acting surly, but I soon learned it was counterproductive.

From then on I’ve been the most respectful “yes sir, no sir saying” SOB possible. And yesterday afternoon, as soon as I knew I was visible and saw the officer’s wave down, I nodded my head exaggeratedly to acknowledge his authority and that I was indeed ready and willing to be pulled over. To complete my obsequious posture I put the biggest smile I could possibly fake onto my face, which for me looks like a smirky toothy grin. Nevertheless, I did my best to look completely agreeable.

“Good evening Sir!” I intoned cheerily, as if I could think of nothing better than to be stopped by this man.

He seemed a bit taken aback by my joyfulness and was immediately disarmed. Now fully into my “part” I asked him with total sincerity how he was doing that evening. In no time we were both into the “act,” with him asking questions and me answering his every question in sentences all ending in “sir.”

He took a quick look at my license plate and remarked that since it had a 2007 sticker he’d only need to see my drivers’ license. As he examined it he asked what country I was from and then what service branch I had “resigned from.”

“I was a marine for 5 years and then did 22 more with the Air Force,” I told him.

He asked me if I knew a fellow, giving me his name, since that guy had also been in the marines and was his brother-in-law by the way. I told him I didn’t recognize the name, but I wasn’t all that well connected with the other retired marines.

Soon, we were talking as equals. As he released me to move on, he introduced himself as a sergeant from the police post just up the street and told me that I should stop by anytime. In fact, he invited me to come out to the firing range and he would get approval for me to fire with them when they practiced out there.

“Are you serious!” I asked incredulous. “That would be great. I’ll probably take you up on that Sir.”

We ended our tête-à-tête with him telling me, “Sir, it was a pleasure meeting you. I hope you will come by the post and visit us whenever you have the time.”

I hate that. Just when you think you know people, one of them is nice to you and ruins it.

The Rainy Season "Dodong" Blues

It’s just past 9 p.m. Tropical Storm Dodong passed over us all last night, all day today, and has been dumping rain in big buckets since the afternoon. It’s coming down so hard right now that I can hardly hear the TV. Looking at it on the Internet on the Pagasa weather site I can see that we are now on the backside of the “eye.” Click on the photo to get a better view of the overlay.

Tropical Storms don’t have the violent winds that typhoons possess, but they certainly can unload a whole lot of precipitation. My first time in the tropics was Western Africa in 1977-1978 and I learned then about the difference between tropical rainstorms and what I was used to up in the northern climes.

The primary distinction between the weather nearer the equator and the northern climes, other than the obvious temperature difference, seems to be the sheer volume of precipitation in the tropics. During rainy season, what passes for a gully washer in the States is just a passing shower here, only here it can last for hours.

Based on the unbelievable quantity of falling rain in these parts, I can see why it would be so important for countries like this to manage the cutting of their forests, especially in the hills and mountains. Lasting for days at a time, this kind of rain will easily super saturate hillside soils that could then potentially collapse under its own waterlogged weight, something that does indeed happen here on occasion with dreadful results.

Last year, during a visit to the northern valley province of Cagayan I saw the indirect negative effects of how this rainy season rain can be extremely destructive when the harvesting of forests goes “unmanaged,” which is one way to put it. I spent several days in the little town of Gatarran on the Cagayan River and I was struck at its wideness. It seemed as wide as the Colorado or the Mississippi.

I spoke to a wonderful 87-year-old woman who had lived there her whole life; she told me that the river is now more than three times the width it was when she was a girl, and it gets wider in some spots by as much as 10 meters a year. The river is literally eating up the valley. She blamed the greedy timber harvesters, land developers, and shameless officials that let it happen. Every year, more houses and property fall into the river, forcing people to rebuild a little further away or to just move on to some other location. What a shame, and totally avoidable.

The rain is slacking off now. These storms are like that. From the satellite I can see that a mini-eye is passing over, but once it moves north with the rest of the storm towards Taiwan I know the hard stuff will continue.

I shouldn’t have gone out today, but the rain didn’t seem so bad at 12 noon when I buzzed away on my Chinese scooter wearing my waterproof camping suit. The rain had been falling steady and not crazy hard like it eventually did. By 6 p.m. when it was time to head home it had been a deluge for at least three hours and the streets could not hold the runoff.

I had been listening and watching it fall like that and feeling an intense dread the longer and harder it fell. The reason for my trepidation is the acute unreliability of my “ride.” My scooter is Chinese, an “American Voyager,” and basically it’s a piece of crap. It didn’t seem too bad when I bought it in February 2004, but its crappiness soon became apparent as it began to average downtime for repairs of at least once a month. For instance, I’ve had to change out my accelerator cable a dozen times, the first time only 5 months after buying it new, and that’s just the start of its shortcomings.

My advice: don’t buy Chinese motor transport of any kind for at least another 15 years; spend the extra money and go for Taiwanese or Japanese wheels. My next motorbike will be a Honda or a Yamaha.

The worst thing about my Chinese piece of crap scooter is that it hates rain, and that’s not good when you live in the Philippines. It doesn’t matter that I’ve replaced or rebuilt virtually every part of the darn thing, it still gives me fits in the rain, and with today’s extreme conditions it did me in once again.

I was half way home and thought hopefully that I might just sputter all the way back into my carport just over a mile away. That is until I chugged slowly off the north end of the Hensonville Bridge and into a foot deep rivulet. That’s where it stalled.

I had to totally wet my shoes and socks to push my POS* scooter to a higher and drier area somewhat out of the way of the splashing traffic. Then, with a prayer and a curse on my lips I pressed the starter button. I don’t know if it was my entreaty to the Lord or my curses at the bike, but it weakly turned over, and happily for me, continued to do so.

I hopped back on and throttled her up hoping to blow out any of the stray water that had killed it to begin with. The engine didn’t sound very convincing to me, it hiccupped and refused to roar back to full gallop, but I figured what the heck—Go for it!

I knew the back road to my subdivision was going to have the deepest water yet, so I determined to keep the throttle going with my right hand while working the brake when necessary with my left. My hope was that keeping the engine well gassed and revved would allow it to fight through the occasional “gulp” of water.

Sure enough, when I made the turn onto the dreaded road that was more river than road, it was worse than I had imagined. I was directly behind a jeepney chock full of miserable looking damp passengers and I watched some of them curiously watching me from their sardine-like positions. We were barely moving, but as long as I WAS moving then I was satisfied with the forward progress. I held my breath listening to the sick sound coming from the engine of the unwilling Chinese two-wheeled fiend under me.

The jeepney pulled over to drop someone off, and with a warning beep, I carefully passed it trying not to splash anyone. At last, a high place in the road and I relaxed a little. Soon, however, I found myself back in the floodwaters and directly behind a pair of trikes moving in tandem as slow as they could without being motionless.

Now, I had a problem. I could NOT go that slow and keep the engine lit. Several times it nearly died as I jockeyed the hell out of the throttle while jamming on the brake at the same time. So, I had no choice but to pass them, even though I did not want to do it. I knew when I eventually went around that I was going to drench them with my wake water, but good.

I sighed, gave them a quick beep, and cranked it up to make my move. I tried to shift as far to the left of them as I could, but my bow wave was necessarily high as I goosed my speed up to pass before an oncoming car reached me.

I cringed hearing the passengers and drivers of the two trikes protest loudly at the dirty road water I was splashing up onto them. “Hey!” one particularly outraged fellow yelled at me.

“Sorry!” I called out, but I was also irritated that they had forced me to it.

Luckily, with only a few more sputters and hesitations in some of the really deep spots, I made it all the way home. I learned my lesson though—next time I’ll just stay put until the storm passes. OR, better yet, until I get me a more dependable scooter. Hopefully soon, my next bike is going to have a stamp that says “Made in Japan.”

*piece of sh*t