Journey of the Soul

The writer featured today in the Journey of the Soul is a young doctor.
Yes Virginia, a doctor. She calls herself Kero, the Quack DOCTOR.
Her story however is not about her profession. It is a story about trust and being true to one’s word.

What would you have done if you were in her shoes?
What’s in a Word?

After two days of straight duty, I almost came home emptyhanded, with no pay from the hospital. and it’s all because of my gullibility…or plainly, my stupidity.

at around midnight, one duty night, there was a man who brought in a woman with a posterior splint bandaged on her left leg. she was accidentally hit by his motorbike, while she was walking, and her foot, in turn, hit a big rock. the man told me he could have easily left the woman but his conscience wouldn’t let him. plus, he was afraid his wife would beat him to death. i think this was the main reason he didn’t run away.

after the surgeon explained to the man the procedure that was going to be done to the patient and an estimate of the cost it would take, he decided to transfer the patient to a government hospital. so, the bill was prepared and i did a referral letter to the hospital of their choice. when everything was ready, we realized the man left! the woman’s companion informed us that the man left to withdraw money from the ATM. at the back of our minds, there was a big possibility that the wasn’t coming back. i gave him an hour and if he didn’t come back, we’re calling the authorities. after more than an hour, he came back, emptyhanded. he said all ATM machines in the area weren’t working.

he asked if he could just return the next day to pay for the ER bill. he looked so desperate and i took pity on him. and more importantly, i thought, the patient had to be transferred at once. period. so i told him to write a promisory note and leave his address with us, without checking first with the hospital director or from the higher-ups.

the next day, i told my sister about what happened. she had big doubts about the man coming back to pay the bill. oh no, if he didn’t come back, i would be forced to shoulder the b ill coz i let him go without him leaving an ID or his driver’s license, just his word!

nowadays, a word or a promise doesn’t mean much anymore. and yet, when this man pleaded with me and promised he’d be back, i believed him. was i gullible? yes. was i stupid? yes. but i had faith in him. i somehow knew he would be true to his word. i may have started to doubt him a little when he didn’t show up by lunchtime, but i was still hopeful he would be back.

i desperately wanted to believe this man was different from the others who would take advantage of stupid people like me. and he didn’t fail me. he came a little after 3 in the afternoon, a few pesos short because that was all the money he had, but it didn’t matter. what mattered was he was true to his word.

This is basically the gist of the essay of bugsy. The proverb was included in the Collection of Proverbs by G. Taverner, a fact that shows us that this is true not only in the Philippines but also in other parts of the world.

The Good Ones, Part One

This post was inspired by blogger-friend algol’s recollection of his taxi ride to Incheon, S. Korea, which he wrote about in his comment to my post here.

I have to admit that I may have focused too much on the “bad” apples here. Mea culpa. I am sorry.
But I have an explanation for that.

First, because the bad ones get more news mileage so we read about them more often than the good ones and second, I guess the bad ones stick to my memory longer.

First, because the bad ones get more news mileage so we read about them more often than the good ones and second, I guess the bad ones stick to my memory longer.

So for a change, let me tell you about the good guys.

Remember Nestor Sulpico? About a year ago, a New York City newspaper cited him as the “most honest taxi driver in New York” when Sulpico returned $70,000 worth of black pearls which a passenger had left in his taxi. Sulpico had to go to Connecticut, 43 miles away, to return the jewelry to the passenger.

There are some things that I want to point out about Sulpico. First, Sulpico comes from Iloilo - yehey! Second, he was mugged twice in Bronx where his apartment is. In fact, the second attack took place barely two weeks before he returned the jewelry and this assault resulted in 6 stitches on his forehead. Third, when he was a kid, he often fantasized about becoming a hero. Well, Sulpico may never become a national hero but his honesty has become legend in New York, a place notorious for discourteous and overcharging taxi drivers.

There is another honest taxi driver who recently made news when he returned P150,000 cash which his passengers inadvertently left in his taxi. It turned out that the money was needed for the surgery of one of the passenger’s daughter who has brain turmor. This honest taxi driver hails from - guess where? Iloilo also! His name is Reio Lance. He drives a taxi on weekdays and sells balut on weeknights to augment his income.

I’ve met a lot of good taxi drivers too. Although their own stories may never come out in the newspaper like Nestor and Reio, I like to talk to them and ask them about their experiences, I like to listen to their views about news and life and sometimes, I just let them talk and talk.

About two months ago when I was in Manila, I took a taxi going to Makati from where I live. The traffic jam allowed us to talk about a lot of things. Our conversation started with my niece’s pet, a Rottweiler, which the driver saw when he picked me up. I was surprised that he knew a lot about dogs. He was quite young, maybe in his early 20s and I learned that he just graduated from college but couldn’t find employment right away. He said he didn’t want to waste time so while waiting for responses to his applications, he thought about driving a taxi (he instantly earned my admiration when he said that - bow ako!).

The good thing happened when we were nearing the mall. It started to drizzle and the cars slowed down even some more perhaps because they were unloading their passengers right at the door. I saw a passenger frantically waving to catch the taxi driver’s attention and since we were just a few strides away from where I wanted to get off, I told the driver that I’d get off there so he could pick up the passenger. I paid at this point and the driver put his meter off. It was a pleasant surprise for me when he said, “No, don’t get down here. It’s raining so I’ll drop you near the entrance.”

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