Why can't high government officials become victims for once?

All that happened to us last Wednesday were the things I hate about driving in Metro Manila.  I was driving the wife to the airport and we left Fairview at half past ten for their 1:30 pm flight.  I reckoned three hours was more than enough.

            But this was Metro Manila and one must always expect the unexpected.  It rained heavily that morning; many streets were flooded; and schoolchildren and workers were sent home just as they arrived in their schools and places of work. The result? Pandemonium!

            From Commonwealth Avenue I thought of taking C5 to the airport.  I saw Zurzuaregi chocked with all sorts of vehicles.  The vehicles on University Avenue leading to CP Garcia were not moving.  While East Avenue was moving a bit, EDSA had a gridlock.  I fought my way along Kamuning and the “K” streets trying to cross over to New Manila.  But I was only able to do that on Tomas Morato.  I picked up some speed on Gilmore but found vehicles backed up a few blocks from Aurora Boulevard.  I skirted Mt Carmel Church and emerged somewhere in San Juan where we passed by children cavorting on filthy floodwaters.  On to V Mapa, I took a short cut through the Prince Motel and emerged on the new bridge across the swollen Pasig River.  At the end of that street was Quirino Highway where nothing South-bound was moving.  So we doubled back to Otis and emerged at UN Avenue.  We found ourselves somewhere in Paco and crossed Taft Avenue on Quirino.  We emerged on Roxas Boulevard and made a right to the CCP complex and on to Macapagal Avenue.  It was already one o’clock by this time.

             I punctured through EDSA Extension and raced toward Uniwide Sales Coastal Mall where we got held up by a monstrous traffic jam.  All I could at this point was to curse every high government official I could think off and pound my steering wheel until my hands hurt.  When we were able to crawl our way onto the Domestic Airport departure area, we were three minutes late and the plane had already taxied to the runway.

            My day shot to bits, I had no choice but to drive the missus all the way back to Fairview.  Surprise, surprise!  It took us less than an hour.

            The early evening news said that even the fake president's convoy had to make a very wide detour to reach Quezon City.  Still, she was an hour late.  I didn’t even find the news a bit consoling, that even the most powerful fake in this godforsaken country was victimized by Manila’s horrendous traffic problems.

             The only thoughts swimming in my head at the time was this fervent wish that her convoy bogged down somewhere in San Juan and that she subsequently drowned in a submerged street overflowing with polluted floodwaters.