PAPER 1

Dones, Mark Lester T.

CE – 1
SS12/A8
August 3, 2016

Traffic in Metro Manila

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-JA3mYEcME

The title itself already shows a background of this documentary. This documentary is all about
comparison of the percentage of roads nationwide to our country, this also shows the ratio of roads used
in every street, barangay, city, province, and region. The documentary also mentioned about the
percentage of land transportation that occupies the road and causes traffic. This documentary also showed
different civilian perspectives. They asked questions like “why there’s traffic”, “how much time needed to
get to their destination with or without traffic”, and other questions concerning about traffic. First, they
showed a student’s perspective. Different students who mostly use public transport as means of
transportation from their respective houses to their schools have different reasons. Second, it showed an
enforcer’s perspective. The enforcer said a lot about how they manage the vehicles when traffic is piling
up. Third, it showed an athlete’s perspective. The athlete’s concern is about the smoke produced when
there’s traffic and how it can ruin a day of a tired athlete. Fourth, it showed a driver’s perspective. The
driver’s concern was about the number of cars and how it can lessen the traffic in the country, the driver
also compared the traffic in the past and the present. Lastly, it showed a doctor’s perspective. It talked
about the health risks of traffic.

According to Wikipedia, Traffic on roads may consist of pedestrians, ridden or

herded animals, vehicles, streetcars, buses and other conveyances, either singly or together, while using
the public way for purposes of travel. Traffic laws are the laws which govern traffic and regulate vehicles,
while rules of the road are both the laws and the informal rules that may have developed over time to
facilitate the orderly and timely flow of traffic. As a civil engineering student, my concern in this
documentary is about the roads. The government gave a fund that could make traffic possibly to zero
percent. Instead, engineers or people conducting projects try to make money out of it. Well, of course, I’m
just saying this without proof, but knowing the budget used for the road and lrt/mrt rail projects and
seeing the results that could hardly be proud of, I can really conclude that they really making money out
of it. I mean they don’t care what the results would be, as long as they can produce big money out of it.
Traffic isn’t the problem, the roads are. Money – minded people makes bad roads, bad roads makes
traffic. So I can hardly tell that cars, people, and other conveyances are the problem here. Organized
traffic generally has well-established priorities, lanes, right-of-way, and traffic control at intersections.
Traffic is formally organized in many jurisdictions, with
marked lanes, junctions, intersections, interchanges, traffic signals, or signs. But here in our country some
roads lack of proper signage and traffic signals. Some even lack of marked lanes. So the root of these
traffic problems is the roads that money-minded people made.
 PAPER 1
PATINTERO: A Short Documentary about Street Children
in the Philippines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MFHaDI4ydw

This documentary shows the life of street children. The documentary chose its location near at
University of Sto. Tomas. The documentary talked about causes of children roaming freely and helpless
in the streets. First reason was overpopulation. Many families are having a hard time sustaining their
children’s needs because of the low income that is generated by the parents. Many are unemployed. Many
don’t have stable jobs. Second reason was poverty. There are 4 out of 5 children dying because of
poverty. The kids should be studying; instead they’re exposed to garbage just to get money out of it.
Third reason was education. Twenty percent of Filipino children are uneducated, aging 6 to 15 years old.
It showed an interview with two street children there. The interview was conducted with two kids, Janine
and Geraldine. The two kids beg for money in their everyday lives. They just live in the streets since they
have no homes to go to. The two kids were siblings, Janine was the older sister of Geraldine, and
Geraldine is a baby. The two came from a province in Quezon. The two have parents. The two just
wanted to help their family.

As a civilian, you shouldn’t let kids be out in the streets. They’re just kids; they should
experience life in an easy environment, not in a survival kind of environment. Kids should have fun; not
doing jobs even if it’s to help the family. You give life to children for them to see and experience the
world, and you’re job is to help them, not to make them suffer. It’s the parents’ job to make anything
possible for their children. It’s their job to produce and ours is to consume until it comes of time. Street
Children suffers the unfairness of life in a different way, unlike the well fortunate children. Street
Children doesn’t deserve the life they have right now. Some of them are babies; some of them learn
things that kids there age aren’t supposed to know, so something should be done.
 PAPER 1
Mapua Docs | LRT in the Philippines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6AwvGH9AMw

The documentary deals with one of the busiest transportation methods in one of the heavily
populated countries in South East Asia, the light rail transit. According to Wikipedia, The Manila Light
Rail Transit System, popularly and informally known as the LRT, is a metropolitan rail system serving
the Metro Manila area in the Philippines. Although referred to as a light rail system because it originally
used light rail vehicles, it has characteristics that make it more akin to a rapid transit (metro) system, such
as high passenger throughput, exclusive right-of-way and later use of full metro rolling stock. The system
is operated by the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA), a government-owned and controlled corporation
under the authority of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC). Along with the
Manila Metro Rail Transit System (MRT-3, also called the new Yellow Line), and ways’ commuter line,
the system makes up Metro Manila's rail infrastructure. The network consists of two lines: the original
LRT Line 1 (LRT-1) or Green Line, and the more modern LRT Line 2 (LRT-2), or Blue Line. The LRT-1
is aligned in a general north–south direction along over 17.2 kilometers (10.7 mi) of fully elevated track.
From Monumento it runs south above the hustle and bustle of Rizal and Taft Avenues along grade-
separated concrete viaducts allowing exclusive right-of-way before ending in Baclaran. A four-station
east–west extension along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue that will connect Monumento to the North
Avenue MRT Station is currently under construction. Including the extension's two recently opened
stations, Balintawak and Roosevelt, the LRT-1 has twenty stations. The LRT-2 or Line 2 consists of
eleven stations in a general east – west direction over 13.8 kilometers (8.57 mi) of mostly elevated track,
with one station lying underground. Commencing in Recto, the line follows a corridor defined by Claro
M. Recto and Legarda Avenues, Ramon Magsaysay and Aurora Boulevards, and the Marikina - Infanta
Highway before reaching the other end of the line at Santolan. The system passes through the cities
of Caloocan, Manila, Marikina, Pasay, Pasig, Quezon City, and San Juan. A group of students from the
Mapua Institute of Technology investigates the transport which deals nearly half a million passengers a
single day. The documentary explained the different kinds of rail transit. The documentary also discussed
the countries that are currently using it as a mode of transportation. The documentary also showed
interviews conducted. It was all about how the management of the transit treats the people and problems
that caused by the train.

As a student of SS12, the transit should better take care of its customers. If it’s business they
want, if not, they should give that transit to the government. The transit is now lousy with their customer
satisfaction according to the interview of the documentary. They don’t care about the service they
produce anymore. The customers are at stake here, if they continue that, the government should interfere
because it’s a form of transportation where people can get to their destination on time. I am too, a victim
of this transit. A victim where the service is lousy. The train sometimes malfunctioned when it’s on rush
hour, and the maintenance crew doesn’t know a thing when that situation arises. I know that everyone is
taking the train, mostly. But that doesn’t mean the transit can take it for granted. People suffer from
tardiness and yells from their bosses because of this particular matter. Given the fact that it’s a machine
and it can sometimes malfunction, but it’s different when the same problem arises every day you take the
train. The transit is just making money out of it, and not spending money in it.
 PAPER 1
Salim Baba Short Film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92bJd-_mpRU

Sternberg managed to make a film about appreciating ancient things during the Modern Age.
Salim Muhammad is a 55-year-old man who lives in North Kolkata with his wife and five children. Since
the age of ten he has made a living using a hand-cranked projector to screen discarded film scraps for the
kids in his surrounding neighborhoods. The film, Salim Baba, showed how a fifty-five year old man that
pushes an old projector every day just to give his neighborhood the entertainment and essence that they
can get from movies, through his hand edited films. The fifty-five year old man of India, Salim
Muhammad, has been working and modifying the cinema cart just to make it alive for another several
years. When Salim learned the concept of sound, he added it quickly to the cinema cart so the films would
be easier to understand. Without knowing anything about the parts of the cinema cart, he just connects the
dots on what he learned from his father. He made the cart survive after his father’s death by just being
innovative. Roaming around the neighborhood with his four sons, Salim gives his crowd entertainment
through the cinema cart; any kind of entertainment, it could be music or videos. It has been their theater
since the Modern era began. They never tasted the big ones so Salim still continued to give entertainment
every day. Salim never stopped so the machine would be taken over by his sons then his grand-sons and
so on. In order to give the crowd new films, films that are rejected from theaters because of defects, a
person sells them to people like Salim. Salim edits the films by cutting and joining other films to make it
better. Sternberg spent the time in films and clearly he has always been interested in the history of films.
In Sternberg’s documentary, Salim Baba, it portrays that legacies of many new inventions or creation
should not be forgotten on where and how they started. Sternberg showed a man that has been giving
entertainment through films. The man made a living by his ancient handicratft, like Sternberg but in a
theater only. With someone like this, you really feel that what they are doing could disappear at any
moment, like so many traditional handcrafts have over the last hundred or so years.

Modern things just made the world ignorant. People keep forgetting where the Modern era
started. Well, at least, there are still people like Salim who appreciate vintage things, knowing that it
could disappear any time, go to oblivion, for that matter. The Modern Era should really consider
preserving its ancient items because it’s where it belongs. Keeping the cinema cart updated through films
is one way also to preserve this ancient item of the Modern era. People don’t think that way anymore. It’s
always the new that matters and forgetting the things where it clearly started without giving any honor to
it. As a person, you should never forget where you started. Honor the one who taught you to be you right
now. Preserve the lessons that you learned in every milestone of your life. Letting them know of your
success and thanking them is a sign of respect. Every person matters.