The Anatomy of the Filipino On Foot
The archetypical Filipino on foot— the one who navigates his or her immediate urban locality — can be characterized by the labyrinthine mental-mapping of a confused and jumbled city of obstacles where the home-office commute, the loading bays of jampacked clanky jeepneys, the constellation of informal bazaars, uninspired condos, clogged roadways, and the antagonistic public infrastructure of cramped sidewalks, inhumane pathways, and impossible physical connections create a distinct tapestry of the quotidian urbanism that has desensitized many of us. Getting from one place to another, more often than not, is always a messy affair with the swift-footed wayfarer who is perpetually pressed for time.
The archetypical Filipino on foot, more often than not, will deliberately disregard the most basic road signs just to achieve the most efficient, no-nonsense passage across the opposite side of the road. In designated pedestrian crossings, the Filipino pedestrian displays a palpable contempt for the green light of the traffic signal, ready to risk life and limb to cross the threshold where the gas guzzlers throw their weight around in the most pompous way.
The archetypical Filipino wandering the public urbanscapes, for all intents and purposes, does not specifically concern his self to the paved, well-manicured paths that will significantly fritter away fractions of his finite yet essential time. Always up to speed, he is bent to jostle his way among fellow pedestrians who might have the displaced idea that a rush-hour workaday jaunt is to be taken lightly. Established shortcuts are given the premium preference by the everyday Filipino, and if there are none, well, one has to be created no matter what.
The urban landscape, in all its drab and unexciting quality, is embellished with our aversion to control and protocol. We territorialize ad infinitum. We personalize ad nauseam. We improvise ad libitum. And on the heels of finding our way around, and with our inexplicable disgust towards embracing pedestrian etiquette, we have bulldozed fancy irrigated lawns, trivialized designated paths, generated messy human traffic, created complex right of way conflicts, and left behind stringy lines that exhibited our personal desires to just get from point A to point B without drama and bull. In the attempt to reconfigure the navigable built environment where the common Filipino pedestrian did not have direct participation in its fabrication — the desire lines we leave behind in the hostile urban space are liberating, to say the least.
Desire lines — sounds very sexy, isn’t it? Simply put, these lines and trails fashioned by our desires to go against the grain of dominant mobility patterns are byproducts of our preferences and behaviors. In the context of the city, the desire lines are favored by the self or others, never imposed nor thought out in advance. Desire lines can either be physical, or visual. Visible cues and connections can be preferred by the eyes, and can lead to serendipitous routes in a restrictive city. As can be observed in a slew of public spaces dotted by foot traffic, people may tend to overlook generous sidewalk provisions if a narrow alley can offer a faster, more convenient alternative; or skip over, under, or in between absurdly placed barriers and fences, as long as a more practical and more advantageous route can be taken. Why would jaywalkers risk their mortal shells if this isn’t the case?
In the book The Wisdom of the Crowds, penned by the journalist James Surowiecki, he suggested that there is somewhat an intuitive, introspective power induced by the collective behaviors and actions of people. Desire lines, in their rawest beauty, present a communal sentiment that purposefully rejects regulations and restraints in mobility, and encourages user-centered intuition. Contemporary schools of thought in urbanism, landscape architecture, and humanitarian design see this wisdom and enable users to actually be at the very center of the design, form, function, and interface of services and products.
Can the powers that be see this exact wisdom? Although this phenomenon is not exclusive and endemic to our nation’s cramped city centers, its applicability and relevance to our urban context demands the most opportune attention. Instead of clamping down on violators and prohibiting direct routes for the convenience and ease of people, those who wield influence and authority should take advantage of the beauty of desire lines to empower pedestrians, humanize our streets, subdue the rigidity of our cities, and improve the tangible experience of the public realm. Bypassed routes and shortcuts shouldn’t be seen as faulty outputs in a single-dimensional urban system, but as chances to rethink and improve what has been existing and lacking.
The very essence of desire lines have already been harnessed by urban designers, transport planners, and even advertising pundits in forward-thinking parts of the world, and realized that making people decide and discover their present environment would help in creating a better and more bearable environment. This is putting empathy at work.
Desire lines offer us an opportunity to create well-meaning feedback loops — where users generate suggestive route patterns that should be studied, analyzed, and carried out for their potential and feasibility.
This feedbacking process will engage the urban denizen to become more attuned to his space and place and the city. The ideal city is one that is constantly evolving and progressing with human dimensions accounted for. The Filipino on foot is one tough nut to crack — it’s a specie trying to get by in the concrete jungle where conditions are fierce and survival is the name of the game.
