PNR stands for Philippine National Railways or simply the train (I don’t know how to best describe it, please bear with me :D). These are some battles that I encounter whenever I am waiting for the train, inside the train and going out of the train.
Waiting for the train is where the battle starts. Even though it is still around 100 km afar, passengers are lightly pushing one another hoping that the door will stop in front of them. There are also different techniques that I learned just by observing what the people around are doing to take advantage in entering the train first. Some of them are the following – will walk on the yellow platform edge then will stop in front of those that are already waiting, reading newspaper so that the space they occupy will be enough for them to adjust where the door might open.
Once all the waiting passenger enters, another story is created. This is where hard pushing occurs. People entering tend to push the one in front of them just to make sure that they don’t miss the ride because if they do, they will wait for 30 mins, during rush hour, and 1 hour if not. Usually there’s a commotion going on between people inside the train and people who are entering, which is usually about being pushed.
Another challenge is how to get out when you already arrived at your stop especially when the train is already crowded and a bunch of passengers are already waiting to enter. Expect that tension will build up and people tend to shout, argue and become violent.
These are some quotable quotes that I usually hear from people around:
“If you don’t want to be pushed, take a cab” (“Kung ayaw mong matulak, mag taxi ka!”)
“Don’t lean on me, I am not a post” (“Wag mo ko sandalan, hindi ako poste”)
“Please give way to passengers alighting the train, they are not our relatives for us to meet them” (“Pakiusap sa mga pasahero, wag po nating salubungin ang mga bumababa. Hindi natin sila kamag-anak”)
shembot 