SHORTCHANGED.
Since the opening of the school year, our class in the Faculty of Civil Law has been moving from one classroom to another for one reason: a busted air-conditioning unit.
Aside from the inconvenience, moving from one classroom to another shortchanges me and my classmates since we paid for the airconditioning and our instruction which is delayed whenever we have to change rooms. At the least, it takes us five minutes to transfer from one room to another, which could have been used for fruitful discussions.
Another thing that bothers me is what happened to the P800 energy fee we paid for the semester.
From the information I have, the energy fee is charged mainly for the maintenance of the air-conditioning units. But there lies the problem.
A month into the first semester and the airconditioning of Rm. 134 of the Main Buildingis still not functioning.
The persons responsible for the maintenance should not make us wait for an eternity before they repair the defective units. Every now and then, they should check on the units without the affected students bringing the matter up.
For the record, we have informed the people at the Dean’s Office, which could be the reason we’ve been assigned to different rooms everyday.
Well, here is another fast fact. Law students are not the only occupants of that room. Faculty of Pharmacy students also use the room from morning until mid-afternoon, which just adds insult to the injury.
Probably, by the time this article sees print, the defective air-conditioning unit will have been repaired, but that will not change the fact that we have been shortchanged.
***
Sometimes, we Filipinos just have a way of not helping each other.
Early this month, I went to a friend’s home in Las Piñas. On my way home to Sta. Mesa, I opted to take the South Super Highway route instead of the Coastal Road.
My friend dropped me off near Alabang Town Center in Muntinlupa City where I was supposed to take a taxicab to my place in Nagtahan, Manila since it was already 11:30 in the evening.
But the subsequent events made me change my decision to ride a taxi going home.
I came across three waiting taxicabs, the drivers of which asked me to pay a whopping P350 because they wont take me in if I don’t hire them for the fee. In short, they won’t use their taximeters to calculate the bill.
Disgusted, I decided to take a bus that passed through Ayala Ave. in Makati City, where I got a taxicab, whose driver charged based on the meter reading, to take me to Nagtahan.
On the way home, I asked the taxi driver how much it would cost me to travel from Nagtahan to Alabang Town Center at that time of the day. He said it would cost P200 at the most.
It was good thing I did not give in to the “request” because I had an inkling the charge was an overkill. Instinct told me P350 from that place is exorbitant.
Small things, such as overcharging, show, sometimes, how some of our countrymen choose to take advantage of their brethren. I believe our country would be a much better place if we had less abusive people.
