Afternoon Taxi Issues

Journal No.1

How would you feel when your own fellow countrymen did bamboozled acts?

Defensive?

Angry?

Or perhaps dissappointed?

Today, I had a talk with my Taiwanese student about how he spent his weekend. When he told me he went to Lantaw (a famous floating native restaurant in Cordova, Cebu), I was already anticipating on how he dealt with the means of transportation in going there. Even in the past my foreign students always have these left and right issues about taxi drivers around Cebu. Going back, he told me how expensive the fare was and how the taxi driver didn't use the meter. The driver even asked additional 100 pesos for passing a certain road which I really don't have an idea requires that fee. I'm not really fun of using taxi unless it's emergency or it's raining; correct me if I'm wrong, but want I know is that we should follow what's on the meter, right? Just because they are foreigners doesn't mean they should be treated unjustifiably.

Taxis in the Philippines are commonly white in color.

Is this really how our taxi drivers in Cebu treat foreign passengers? Is this our way of welcoming them in our country? 

When I heard his story, I can't help but be disappointed. My own felllow countrymen doing deceitful acts to lure foreigners for money. I can't help but be ashamed with myself, too. Given the fact that I'm also a Filipino. I can still feel the intense look my student gave me, like his looking through the eye of that driver who trick him in me. I tell you it's really not a good feeling. I feel like being judge without proper trial and ending in prison guilty of nothing. Foreigners tend to generalize things I tell you, they might think other Filipinos are also deceitful like the ones they've met. And this will be a domino effect to all Filipinos in the Philippines.

Is it really MORE FUN in the PHILIPPINES? or is it MORE SCAM in the PHILIPPINES?

I'm not generalizing all taxi drivers. I know there are still good-hearted man driving out there and I personally experience their kindness. But these kind of taxi drivers are getting extinct or not; they are over shadowed by those tricky ones.

I hope one day, these taxi drivers would realize how they are staining Philippines' credibility in terms of tourism. They are ruining what the government has esblished to gain high tourist rate. Due to this negative issues we are having, foreigners are now afraid of visiting our mother land and explore the beauty at its best. May this be an awakening not only for taxi drivers but for all of us. Let's always remember the golden rule of Confucius: 

"Treat others the way you would like to be treated."