As I go through my mundane day-to-day routines, questions sometimes pop into my head. It wouldn’t be so troublesome, if only I, or anyone I know, could actually give answers. Up to now, I haven’t found any, so I decided to just list them down and spring them on an uncaring and unresponsive world, in the hope that if I put them out there in cyberspace, they will disappear like Helium-filled balloons into the sky until I find no trace of them. Kind of like out of sight, out of mind. So, without further ado, these are the five wonders of my cluttered mind (too bad I only came up with five; two more would’ve completed my aspirations for having seven wonders):

1. An overpass isn’t supposed to be just another landmark.
Does it ever occur to CDO pedestrians that an overpass is constructed for an actual purpose? They are supposed to exist for the safety and well-being of pedestrians, to give them an opportunity to cross a road without having to run an obstacle course for fear of getting hit by vehicles speeding through the highways. The city has several overpasses but strangely enough, they remain largely unused. CDO pedestrians are a brave ilk. Most drivers of CDO public utility vehicles (notably, jeepneys) drive like madmen or like they own the city streets, but pedestrians will still risk crossing the roads. Who knows? Maybe they don’t like taking the stairs or maybe the darkness and the filth in the overpasses scares them more than reckless drivers, which leads me to the next mystery….

2. Jaywalkers walking scot-free in front of RTA officers.
It never ceases to amaze me how the Roads and Traffic Administration (RTA) officers can let jaywalkers get away without so much as a warning for crossing a busy intersection during rush hour. Why is it that when motorists get into even the slightest mishap that doesn’t cause any major damage to the parties involved, RTA officers seem to materialize out of thin air to insist that the parties settle the matter before their office even when the parties themselves are unwilling to make a complaint, yet when jaywalkers suddenly dart out into a busy street, the officers seem perfectly fine with it? I happened to pass by an intersection at Bulua one morning, the one right beside Macapagal Drive, and there was an RTA officer directing vehicular traffic but completely ignoring to regulate pedestrians crossing the road. To top it off, the RTA officer was standing, like, a few meters away from the overpass. I guess the overpass was just another landmark to him.

3. Paying parking fees for an unsecured public facility.
If you’ve ever been to the Pelaez Sports Center, you’d find that before your vehicle can enter the gates, the personnel will ask you to pay a P5.00 parking fee. Nothing extraordinary, right? Right. When you read the parking ticket, however, you’d find the words “Park at your own risk.” There are signs hanging on the steel fences saying that, too. SO, WHY IN THE WORLD ARE THEY ASKING PEOPLE TO PAY PARKING FEES? Is it to pay for the materials and the cost of printing those darn parking tickets? Why is the management asking for parking fees when they can’t even provide anything in return for charging fees at a PUBLIC FACILITY? Imposing fees means that the government ought to provide something in exchange for the convenience and welfare of the people who use those services or facilities, like maintenance or protection of their personal property while inside the premises. Why do owners of private vehicles have to pay for the privilege of parking inside the Sports Center when they can’t even be assured that their vehicles will be safe from petty thieves? I’d really like to know.

4. Barney is a T-Rex.
Now, I’m onto another mystery that isn’t CDO-related. A lot of babies, toddlers, and kids love Barney. He’s always happy and funny, likes to sing and dance, and is generally very entertaining to these young ones. Just a thought…Barney is a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Just look at a picture of one and you can see that he belongs to that species. He’s big, walks upright, has small forelimbs and massive hindlimbs, with a big, long tail. If you’ve seen “Jurassic Park” or “Land Before Time,” then you’d know that T-Rexes aren’t the least bit friendly or prone to break out into a song-and-dance routine to entertain you. They are mean, ferocious, meat-loving predators. The fact that Barney is a green and purple dinosaur made of cloth without the claws and sharp teeth and has a perpetual smile plastered on his face doesn’t change the fact that he is a T-Rex. Why in the world the creators of the show thought that it would be a good idea to make a children’s show character out of a carnivorous dinosaur is beyond me. Then again, the show’s world-wide popularity and success makes the point immaterial. I just hope that kids don’t get confused or saddened when they grow up and find out that Barney’s kind aren’t really so friendly after all.

5. No one bothers to respond to an invitation with RSVP.
RSVP is an acronym for the French phrase répondez s’il vous plaît, which means, “please respond.” I don’t know if it’s just people here in CDO who never bother to comply with this request in formal invitations given to them, or if it’s true of Filipinos in general. The hosts usually add an RSVP to an invitation to find out how many people will be attending the event to help them plan accordingly. Invited guests don’t bother to let the hosts know in advance, though, most just send a text message on the day of the event itself or the day before that they won’t be attending because they have a prior commitment. To think that they could have saved their hosts the time, effort, and expense of planning a party for one hundred people when only sixty people will actually show up for the event. Just like an overpass, an RSVP does have a purpose. People just don’t bother to use it.

So many things for me to wonder….