Buses and late Friday afternoons

Last Friday on our way home from Davao, I saw two Mindanao Star buses along Pagalungan and I felt like crying. 

See, I finished my undergraduate in Davao. It’s a place five hours away from my hometown Cotabato City. And yet from 2002-2009, it felt a lifetime away. It was during these years when bomb explosions were rampant and commuter buses were common targets. Riding one was a gamble of life and death.

I remember the first time I rode the bus to Davao. April 2005. I documented it. Every time I rode a bus, I feared that it would be my last. And so, for the duration of my university life, I would only dare travel back home twice a year: year-end and summer break. I have also taken up the habit of riding vans. I still rode buses, like that time when I joined the MPDC events, but they were mostly nighttime buses. I did not realize that I had developed an irrational fear of riding buses in the daytime until our class went to Cagayan de Oro in 2007 for an activity. We rode the van on our way there. On our way back, the class decided to ride the bus. The day before we departed for home, an explosion rocked Glorietta. Since then, I’ve had anxious thoughts about the bus terminal getting blown up or the bus exploding at some point between Cagayan and Bukidnon. I remember Kim holding up our tickets at the bus station and I could imagine the booth behind her exploding into smithereens. I remember seating beside Kokoi and praying nonstop on the first hour of the ride. It was only when I fell asleep and woke up in Valencia unscathed that the thoughts stopped.

Seeing the Mindanao Star buses, shiny and new, irreverent behemoths traversing the once-deadly Cotabato-Davao road, I felt a lump in my throat and a feeling of thankfulness washed over me. I felt thankful to be alive and to be able to witness this seemingly mundane moment. 

Perhaps my troubles are lost to those who have the luxury of riding their private cars, unperturbed by the dangers the common folks are exposed to in the face of an insecure environment. Looking back, I muse: isn’t it strange that the people who get to decide are those who do not even bear the consequences of their choices?

“But is it really peaceful now? Have we finally achieved peace?” I used to not know how to answer these questions. Not when people are still killing each other in the marshes of Maguindanao. But after last Friday, I think that the next time someone asks me “is this Peace?”, I would let that seventeen-year-old girl who used to be afraid of riding buses answer the question. 

Perhaps, yes. And maybe not fully. But I sincerely believe that where we are now is a step towards the right place. We still have a thousand steps to go. There is still so much to do. And so we tread on.

To my friends who are fighting the good fight, battle on. One day, your buses will come home safely.