6:35 PM, Tuesday night. I just got out of Vasco Station. The night sky is finally clear now. Gone are the obscuring haze or fogs that had enveloped the whole bay area for days. Now I can clearly see hundreds of cars ahead of me as we reach the foot of the Altamont hills. Cars, despite the heavy traffic, run faster than the posted limit. I can tell why. It has been a while since we had this high degree of visibility. I can see how excited everyone is.
Then I saw this one car swerving, almost hitting the highway divider. A few more inch and it would have been a deadly one. I was so close to him that time. I felt scared..... That it might happen again. And that this time, might be it.
I have had my own share of unfortunate experiences with road accidents. If I am a cat, I only got 4 lives left.
The Book
College days, 1991. I was crazy about software programming. And at the time, my favorite was Turbo Pascal. I was so into it that I bought (or copy) every book I see about this software. My friends Kotzki and Banal were crazy about it too. We kid ourselves saying we can write programs even with our eyes closed. The school even sent all three of us to a programming competition.
One afternoon, my friend and I went out and bought some books. I got the latest Turbo Pascal book day. It had lot of good programming techniques and undocumented functions. I was so excited that I could not wait to get home to read it. But when we got on the bus, we were not seated right away because it was full. We were standing in the isle. I was holding my book on my right hand, and my left hand on the handle bars mounted on the seats.
It wasn't long when a couple of guys stood up and gave up their seats because their stop was coming. I opened the book and started reading when suddenly, I felt my body being thrown backward so fast that the back of my head smashed on the handle bar so hard. I thought I'd pass out. The conductor who was standing in the isle was thrown to the back of the bus with both feet up in the air. I can't imagine what could have happened to me if I was still standing when it happened.
A bus hit us from behind.
When we got out, my friend asked me if I was ok. I said "I'm fine. Forget about me. Let's get back inside and find my book."
The Bus
One afternoon I was riding a bus on my way to my 6 o'clock class. We were at the south expressway and just passed the Bicutan exit headed south. The road was almost empty and the driver was just cruising at a considerable speed.
The seats on the left side of the bus fits 3 people while those on the opposite side, where I was sitting, could only fit 2. There was a guy sitting next to me. Our seat was close to the door.
Everyone was calm and quiet. Until the bus started swerving and then I could hear men and women screaming. The breaks wasn't working, shouts the bus driver. I looked at the people on the left side of the bus and wished I was seated in the middle of one of those seats, using the persons on the sides as my cushion. The driver swerved right and tried to hit the side wall and use friction to stop the bus. But he missed it. We were then headed towards a ditch and that would have been very deadly had we got into it. The driver made a sharp turn and had the bus turning left, towards the center divide. It was then that I decided to lift my feet, bent them, pressed my chest on to my legs and my head in between them.
The center divide was strong enough to halt the bus. Luckily, no-one was hurt. If the bus went through it, towards the opposite highway, a lot of people could have been harmed or even died. I was more in danger because I was at the right side of the bus.
The Jeepney
Magallanes, Midnight, 1998. Close call.
I can't remember if I worked late or went out with my friends that day. I ride a bus to get home but the buses usually stay only until 10 or 11 o'clock in the evening. And I just missed the last one. So the only choice was to ride a jeepney. Jeepneys are the cheapest form of transportation in the Philippines. They can carry as much as 20 people with ease. Two passengers at front, sitting next to the driver, and a couple of stretched seats at the back where 9 people on each side can sit.
At the jeepney station, there was already an empty one waiting. I chose to sit behind the driver because I thought it was the safest spot in a jeepney. I was the first one on board. It was going to be a long night because the driver would never leave without having his jeepney loaded with passengers. I paid my fare and fell asleep. Minutes have passed until I first felt the jeepney moved. It was almost midnight and the jeepney was on its way out of the parking lot. I returned back to sleep.
We had travelled a couple of miles when, while entering the south expressway, on a curve where the area was so dark because there was not enough light-posts, in Magallanes, a big truck, which seemed to have come from nowhere, was backing-up and on a collission course with our jeepney. Our driver was not quick enough to react and hit the truck. I was asleep and didn't hear any scream. Just a wild crashing sound, and the jeepney ended up under the big truck.
The two ladies sitting next to the driver were both badly injured with their faces covered with their own blood. Everyone at the back seemed to have been alright except for one.....
Newton's Law of Motion : Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.
Everyone didn't expect that we're going to hit something, even at the last moment, and some of them didn't even bother holding on to the handle-bars bolted on the ceiling. When the jeepney made a sudden stop, all those bodies have been thrown at me. I couldn't react bacause I was asleep. It felt like I have been squeezed under a pile of a hundred elephants. I was crushed and could not walk or even move for at least half an hour. And no-one even cared. I had to drag myself out of the wreckage.
The Tooth-less Driver
Our friend Cherry was about to leave for Canada that week. We planned to attend her going-away party but we stayed late in the office that day.
Jay-Arr drove us that night with Jenny's honda civic. She and Yuri, her boyfriend then - now her husband, were comfortably sitting at the back. We were all kidding about being worried that we might get an accident since Jay-arr and I are known to possess bad lucks when in a vehicle.
And so it happened.
We were about to cross EDSA highway when a jeepney hit us directly on the driver side. It missed our driver, but the engine was badly damaged. No-one was hurt. We all got out to confront the Jeepney driver but when he got out, he looked really young. He was just a kid, a teen-ager, missing all his front-teeth. I wanna punch him in the face, but how could I? He was just a kid. He didn't even have a license.
Well, we ended up missing Cherry's party and spent the rest of the night in a police station. And nothing happened. For days, we have been going after the driver and the jeepney's owner, but we never got anything from them. I feel sorry for Jenny. She spent a lot of money fixing her car. But the important thing was none of us got hurt in that accident.
The Flying FX
One morning, on my way to work, the traffic on the south expressway was unusually smooth-flowing..... Until we reached the Sucat area.
I was in an FX at the time.
Nowadays, jeepneys' main competitions were the van-type, air-conditioned vehicles (I think they were classified as AUVs but I'm not sure about that.) One of them is called the Tamaraw FX which we normally called FX. I like them because, for at least a couple of hours, I free myself from noise, heat and pollution.
We have already passed the Alabang exit, and were just cruising and enjoying the smooth flow of traffic, when we saw break lights from half a mile away, started to lit up. We were approaching the Sucat exit. The driver was hesitant to continue on and thought of taking the back roads. He asked us, his passengers, to decide where we wanted to go. We were still a quarter of a mile away from the exit but he already slowed down while other cars were still speeding, we could hear them honking as they passed. Before we could answer, we heard the people in the back screaming, "Oh my God! we're gonna get hit! we're gonna get hit." I knew what's going to happen so I grabbed the back of the front-seat and pushed myself in between the two guys on my sides and used them as cushion. Then I heard a thundering sound from behind.
The bus driver tried hard to avoid us. There must be a lot of cars, incoming or already next to it, in the right side of the bus so the bus driver chose to go left. But still hit us from the back-corner. It wasn't a direct impact, but was enough to make our car swerve and lose control. The impact was so bad that the FX was thrown side ways and was really out of control. The FX rolled over, twice, and landing on its top. The FX was turning, like a turtle on its back, for a few seconds before it finally stopped.
The FX driver was gone. He must have ran out or was thrown out through the completely smashed windshield.
The two women at front, next to the driver, were still there, crying; bleeding. They were lucky not to have thrown out.
The guy on my left was fine but I could only see the lower part of his body. He was lying on his stomach, with his head underneath the steering wheel. He crawled outside through the broken windshield.
The big guy on my right wasn't hurt, but the lady next to her was badly injured. Her face was smashed on the side-window which was shattered. Miraculously, all four passengers at the back were ok.
I was lucky to be alive and unharmed that day.
I got home and told the story to my mom. She started crying halfway thru the story. She went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water but she dropped on her knees first and started praying and repeatedly thanking God for I wasn't taken from her that day. It was really disheartening seeing her in agony. It breaks my heart seeing her in tears. That moment was more painful than any of of the unfortunate events that had happened to me.
Worried about Leaving, not Dying
It's been years since I've had an incident. I thank God for all those times I walked out alive. Whenever I tell these stories, a question about fear of death always pops up.
If we believe in God and understands His great promises concerning life after death, then there's no reason for fear. This does not mean to say, on the other hand, that one becomes either nonchalant or reckless concerning death, but only to say that the forbidding, mindless fear experienced by so many should be overcome.1
For me the thought of leaving my loved-ones is far worst than death itself.
