CityMall and Other Frustrations

Let’s be real — the gentleness of any city has its limits, even a city that takes to that quality as the essence of its popular tagline.

But gentleness frays at the edges when traffic is constantly baffling, when tricycles crawl at a glacial pace, when motorcycles weave through lanes as if traffic rules are optional, when a plague of cars block entire streets. [Honestly, where did all these cars come from? They all just appeared out of the blue, in this number, after the lockdown of the pandemic.]

Gentleness also disappears when Brownout Sundays become a thing, and you are awakened early in the morning to the buckets of sweat covering your body because the electricity is out — and will only come back on twelve hours later. The generator backup? If it exists, it’s probably struggling just as much as you are.

Gentleness takes flight when you go to the public market, and the prices have mysteriously changed overnight. You buy mangoes one day for ₱80 per kilo. The next day? ₱120. Why? The vendor shrugs. It’s market magic in the time of runaway inflation — the prices change depending on who’s asking and how clueless they look.

Gentleness goes on a holiday when garbage collection follows no schedule. You leave your trash out on the assigned day, only to watch stray dogs tear into it because, surprise! The garbage truck decided not to show up. [Or worse, it came early and left before you even had a chance to bring your trash out.]

Gentleness is gone when you realize Dumaguete is still very much a small town, and hence still prone to being an inescapable gossip machine. Nothing spreads faster in Dumaguete than tsismis. Say something in confidence to one person, and by the next day, the entire city has a slightly exaggerated version of your story. Privacy? Good luck with that.

But it’s not always about Dumaguete that gets my goat. Frustrations have no geographical limits.

So I think of overzealous karaoke sessions — someone in your neighborhood belting out an off-key version of “My Way” at full volume.

I think of yet another Grab Food delivery that’s missing an item, or when the driver insists you received everything even though the receipt tells another story.

I think of the passive aggression of some people I know. For some, this is just another sport practiced to perfection, where compliments feel like daggers, and words are laced with saccharine malice. “Oh, I didn’t expect you to get that opportunity. Good for you!” Or, “Wow, you’re so brave for wearing that.”

The worst part? Not being believed. When you speak a truth and watch the person in front of you dismiss it, as if reality were subjective, as if facts were just suggestions.

I think of bandwagon critical pile-up — where the moment a narrative takes hold, it’s nearly impossible to undo, no matter how much it’s exposed as a lie.

I think of hypocrisy. Especially the social media warriors who scream “makibaka” but have vast family wealth to fall back on — those who decry capitalism while lounging in their air-conditioned living rooms, sipping on overpriced lattes. I think of the virtue signalers who rush to condemn but refuse to self-reflect.

I think of the insidious rise of ignorance-as-a-virtue. It’s one thing not to know something, but it’s another to flaunt it like a badge of honor.

I think of the critical bon mot of something, especially art, being “a product of its time,” and no longer worth considering in the appraisal of the contemporary. Why should art speak for all time? Isn’t there value for art’s specificity of time, permitting it to reflect its currency no matter how wrongheaded it may be in the future? Should we only make art that predicts what becomes in vogue fifty years from now? Are we clairvoyants, or are we chroniclers?

I think of Hedwig.

And finally, I think of my current shrine of frustration: CityMall Dumaguete.

It is the pinnacle of inconvenience, the crown jewel of disappointment. On Brownout Sundays, its generator conks out, turning the mall into a dim sweatbox. Its stores? Unremarkable. Its tiled floors? Cracks and ruin everywhere. The comfort rooms? Barely functional, and if you’re watching a movie from its one and only movie theater, you might as well take a pilgrimage when you hear nature calling. The CR, you will find, is located ten thousand miles away.

But the last straw? Last weekned. When we watched Captain America: Brave New World, and after the last full show, went to the second floor rooftop parking — only to find the exit locked up. No warning, no announcement — just a security guard smugly declaring to us: “We close the mall at 9 PM.” Never mind that you’ve watched movies at CityMall and finished past ten before, and this never happened. (How else to get to your parked car? Their answer: go the long way, up the outdoor ramp. Like, WTF.) Never mind that there’s no logical reason for this nonsense. It’s perhaps just another day in Dumaguete, where annoyances can pile up — but somehow, despite it all, we stay.

Why do things annoy us? Annoyance, at its core, is born from expectation. We expect fairness, we expect reason, and we expect reason a semblance of order. We expect our food to arrive as we ordered it, we expect reason our opinions to be considered in good faith, we expect reason our trips to the mall to be convenient rather than an exercise in endurance. When these expectations are betrayed, irritation follows.

I do wish for something to be gained from having to experience these small frustrations. Perhaps annoyances are there to remind us that we care? Perhaps they highlight what matters to us — such as efficiency, honesty, fairness, and consideration? Perhaps they invite us to cultivate patience? Resilience? Maybe even a sense of humor?

I know that to live life — in Dumaguete or elsewhere — is to embrace its quirks, its contradictions, and even its exasperating moments. I hope I can learn to laugh at the absurdity of it all. I hope to find that these annoyances aren’t just obstacles, but are things that make life feel real, unpredictable, and ultimately, unforgettable.

But who am I kidding.

I am never going back to CityMall ever again.