Change?

The other day, Ang Tigbuhat, art teacher on leave, did a little consulting for a friend who was shopping for a small electric welding set. He needed one for his farm in the hills of Southern Cebu. And so they drove through the downtown area to a large hardware store where Tigbuhat and his friend could review a whole range of possible options.

The noontime traffic was surprisingly light but still the virtual anarchy that prevailed in the streets seemed obvious. His friend missed the good old days when Sammy Darza still headed Citom and the traffic was managed well, or at least much better than it is now. The friend believed the problem is just plain ordinary governance and strictly policing the streets. Tigbuhat was more inclined to considering the cultural aspects of the problem. They had a bit of a disagreement there.

Tigbuhat of course knew his friend was half right. And he did not press his own view that if we wanted a better traffic situation we would have to change our collective view of our world. You can blame our condition to a whole universe of factors but in the end, the truth is, we are only building exactly the world we envision for ourselves. No more. No less. The vision we hold is the key factor. All other issues like resources by way of material infrastructure or personnel such as traffic policemen follow.

But how would we improve our own collective vision of our world? The people who see the most glaring problems of out city streets are most likely people who have been to other big cities of the world. Cities like Singapore or Los Angeles. They have a model or a vision, if you will, in their minds of how traffic ought to be managed. They have actually seen the positive results that derive from the simple act of just managing the traffic well. But then the dismal fact is that not too many people in our streets have seen this. This vision does not exist in their minds. It is not part of the constructs they hold for how their world should operate. And so they navigate the streets thinking this is all they can ever hope for.

And so while Tigbuhat does agree that Citom should do better work and that there should certainly be more Citom personnel, real change can only come if people change their vision and their expectations of their world, the city they navigate through everyday. And that has everything to do with culture, even art.

The problem involves building or drawing in our people’s minds a concrete vision of a well managed street. We may not be able to manage all our city streets immediately. But we could designate a model stretch of road that we can manage exceptionally well so people will see that, indeed, it is possible to manage traffic, manage it well and then derive the benefits that can come from doing this. Why not the stretch of road between the Capitol and Plaza Independencia. Nothing much needs to be done. Just put as many Citom personnel there as needed and just enforce the law as strictly as possible so that no one is allowed to commit any offense without getting a ticket.

From here we just need to expand the area little by little. The idea is for government to retake the streets not away from people but from anarchy. The essence of democracy is not less government as United States Republicans are wont to suggest. It is simply democratic governance absolutely where it is needed. And solving our traffic problem is exactly what our people need right now.

And in due time, we would all realize that our problems lie not so much in the lack of material infrastructure. The problem begins with the simple lack of just plain common-sense governance. This realization is not isolated into itself. This realization is the very basis of culture-change. Along the way we would grow in our expectations and our overlying vision of what our city ought to be. And ironically, this is a process which does not require additional boring lectures, long seminars, and expensive academic research. All it needs immediately is to put more traffic personnel on a modestly long stretch of road and have them do absolutely well what we already pay them to do. Which is manage traffic and penalize anyone who gets in the way.

In the course of that day, the two friends bought their welding set from the hardware store. They went on foot for late lunch to an exotic little Chinese restaurant hidden inside one of the downtown streets. The food was inexpensive and excellent. Surely, it would have qualified for coverage in any one of the food and travel shows you now see so much of over cable television. And the funny thing is that it was good old fashioned Chinese food as Tigbuhat remembers from his youth. Not much change required here.

Tigbuhat could of course continue this piece by writing about how our own food traditions work well as metaphor for culture change. And why you do not have to change everything in order to change things profoundly. Small inexpensive changes are oftentimes more than enough since we do not want to change everything anyway. But that piece would be take too long and you, of course, do not need it.