Shallow bliss

By Marifi Jara

COMING home from a far less developed country, where infrastructure is so poor, feels like stepping back into paradise.

From the airport, my brother drove us through the Pampanga-Tarlac segment of the new Subic-Clark expressway (all the while hailing how great it is). While that was quite a short distance and I could not really feel the advantage and convenience compared to taking the old MacArthur highway route, especially during the wee hours of the morning where vehicular traffic is very light, I still felt a certain satisfaction at seeing development happening.

And it feels wonderful to have comfortable provincial buses that operate on a regular schedule (read: you know when buses are supposed to leave – and they actually do leave on time -and you can actually make plans, like say a back-and-forth trip between here in Pangasinan and Manila within a day and accomplish something!).

I guess bliss comes easier when you have just been to a place where it takes five to six hours of bumpy ride to traverse a little more than 200-kilometer distance on mostly rough roads; a place where taking public transport could very well be a nightmare. Mababaw ang kaligayahan, say kanda.

I know, I know, there’s plenty (really plenty) still amiss here in our home country. The skeptic in me wasn’t left behind in the African continent, it is still hove-ring in the background and asking questions like what percentage of the road project cost could have changed hands under the table. But allow me my moment of enjoying the pleasures of the Philippines.

I am cheering about this week’s news that another expressway, from Tarlac to La Union cutting through Pangasinan, will soon be in the works. Another hour less of travel time to our province! (So do we really, really need an airport?)

And then there’s the irrigation project (calling it a re-regulating pond is such a tongue-twister) linked to the San Roque Multi-purpose Dam. I could easily be a cynic and say oh no, who are getting rich quick again this time? But hey, back in Mozambique, hardly any farm there, including the rice fields in the Zambezia province where we are based, has any irrigation. With global climate so unpredictable, among many other factors, food security is a huge, huge, huge problem.

What was that in the Desiderata about never comparing yourself with others: “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.” We can apply it to comparing countries here. But for now, still reeling from my recent deprivations, I wallow in my Philippine bliss.

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