M.R.T.

Funny that my first entry was about the injustice to women and now the fortune of being the daughters of eve!

I was one of the first MRT passengers to ride the first “women, children & elderly only” coach on a Monday morning. Twas great not squeezing yourself in order to get in the train. A relief. Woohoo =)



The MRT management decided the segregation necessary after observing the situation of women, children and elderly during peak hours. I don’t know if their decision was triggered by emails regarding misbehaving men, gay, and yeah even women taking advantage of the jam-packed situation. That behavior, hmm I don’t want to elaborate - read you mails instead.

I only ride the train on Mondays ( okay Fridays too) and as we all know it is the time of the week when ‘probinsyanas’ from the north (like me) would once again congest Manila. And its pretty hard a toil to get in the train on that particular day since commuters are double or triple than usual.

While we fortunate women were cool and comfy in the first coach, the guys in the second and third coach were hot headed (a degree away from boiling point!) and squashed. Imagine men all groomed up for work - long sleeves and well kept hair - bathing in sweat as early as 7:00 in the morning.

I was unaware of the situation until 3 men from Cubao station entered our ‘women only” coach (apparently policemen failed to stopped them) and talked about their plight with such (deliberate) loudness so us girls could hear their sentiments. How insensitive were we to even raise our eyebrows to these poor men when they came in. It takes so much guts to run away from the police all for the glory of riding the train. They grumbled about how long they have waited for the next MRT yet couldn’t still get in, that if the condition would not be fixed another stampede would happen (yeah exaggerated I know). And that they were there since 6:00am (oh come on). Then they formulated several schemes like additional trains every Monday morning, fourth coach and all-men train. Not bad for harassed men to propose.

MRT management should do something. While I am a woman and the new scheme works well for me I refuse to conform and just chill (right zanjoe!). Lets work towards a harmonious travel for women and men alike. Besides everyone deserves something to boost their energy for another week of strenuous office work!

Have a great week friends! mwaaaaah