I know that the most-hated people in the Philippines right now are our corrupt government officials, but to an ordinary citizen like me, nothing pushes my buttons harder than the annoying cab drivers here in Metro Manila! Here are the reasons why I HATE hailing a cab:

  • The cab drivers raise the fare just after I’ve stepped inside: “Dagdagan nyo na lang ng trenta ang metro ha.” Whatda?!
  • They refuse to let me in because my destination wasn’t their preferred destination. Waitaminute, who’s the passenger and who’s the driver again?
  • Upon hearing the place where I wanted to be driven to, they change their minds and tell me they have to take their lunch first. Then why did you stop when I hailed for a ride in the first place?!
  • They only want to take passengers whose destinations are not beyond Makati City. Dapat nag jeepney drayber na lang kayo!
  • When they suspect that traffic is heavy ahead, they ask me to get off so they won’t get stuck in traffic. And it doesn’t matter to them if I’d get wet from standing in the rain. Their comfort comes first. Ayos!
  • They pretend they don’t notice me waiting for the change for the P100 bill I gave.
  • When I remind them about it, they insist they don’t have any change.
  • When I show them how pissed I am at them, they snap right back at me and call me names! Whatever happened to the saying, “The customer is always right”?
  • When I tell them I’m going to report them to the LTFRB or LTO, they just laugh at my face and tell me to go ahead, that doesn’t scare them.
  • Lastly, they ruined my anniversary night with Deej. :(

It’s a long story, but the short version is, Deej was on his way to Libis to meet a client last night. Along the way, the cab driver distracted him and took his cellphone that fell out of his pocket. He didn’t even notice it was gone until he had gotten off the cab. What a scheming, deceitful scumbag of a driver.

That old Nokia 6600 phone, although it’s not worth anything much these days, contained all his important business contacts. It also contained the text messages I sent him since Day One, the photos we have together taken in 2006, and the list of all the movies we’ve watched together since the first time we went out. The movie list is stored in the Notepad of his phone which we religiously update every time we go see a movie. The list was around… ah, I’ve lost count! I know it doesn’t mean anything to you, dear reader, but that phone was very special to both of us. Sigh.

As you’ve probably figured out, our anniversary dinner last night was ruined because we kept thinking about the lost phone and how EVIL that cab driver is. Evil, just as Neri described our president. HAH! I’ve been calling and texting his old number but we all know that something like this is already a lost cause. And that’s coming from someone who has lost not just one, but two cellphones in the past. Given that I’m a total klutz, that is not a shocking news.

Right at this minute, Deej is sending this message to his friends, “Hey there, a cab driver is now the proud owner of my old phone. I’m using this Smart number now: +63 929 *** ****. Kindly send me yours. Thanks.” Haha.

Despite what happened, we tried our best to reclaim the night, our night. We ate our dinner at Nipa Hut, and boy did I enjoy the awesome view overlooking the rest of Pasig City! The night ended with me finding the star that my dad doodled over the “February 28″ date in our calendar. I asked him this morning what that was about, and he told me, “What else? It’s your anniversary!”. Lol.

So where was I? Oh yeah, I was about to say that I abhor the majority of the taxi drivers here in Metro Manila. ‘Nuff said.

What’s your recent cab experience?

[EDIT] Aurus brought up a good point about referring to Manila cab drivers alone and not Filipino cab drivers in general, so I changed the title of this post. I know for a fact that taxi drivers in Baguio and Bacolod City are way nicer and more accommodating than those in Metro Manila. [/EDIT]

Interesting read: Episode with a Chinese Taxi Driver