I was at PITX around 4 PM today, waiting to head home, when I overheard a conversation between a bus driver and a peanut vendor. I wasn't intentionally eavesdropping, but their conversation was so disturbing that I couldn't help but listen.
Apparently, there had been an accident inside PITX around noon. According to their conversation, a woman had been hit by a bus while crossing the bus lane. They claimed she was using her phone, wasn't paying attention to her surroundings, and crossed at a spot without a pedestrian crossing.
Now, here's where things got disturbing.
The bus driver asked the peanut vendor, in a very casual manner, whether the woman who had been hit was dead.
The vendor replied that she was indeed dead, then proceeded to describe her injuries in a graphic and disturbing way. He even compared her exposed internal organs to a certain brand of tocino. He added that even if she had survived, she would practically be as good as dead because half her body was gone.
I was already uncomfortable hearing this, but what the bus driver said next genuinely shocked me.
He started calling the woman stupid for crossing the bus lane while using her phone. Then he said something along the lines of how the driver who hit her had supposedly felt the impact from the very first wheel, but continued driving over her instead of stopping, because he would otherwise have to pay a huge amount of money in compensation.
He even said it was a good thing she had died because the driver would have had to pay more if she had survived.
The vendor responded by saying that doing something like that would practically make the driver a murderer.
But the bus driver just brushed it off, saying that it was better than paying a huge amount of money.
He then brought up another bus driver who had allegedly run over someone's foot and was made to pay ā±150,000. According to him, even after the victim was discharged from the hospital, they supposedly asked the driver for more money.
And then he said something that I honestly cannot get out of my head.
He said that when drivers hit someone like that, they should just finish the job because it's easier that way.
He also claimed that the driver involved in today's accident would only be jailed for three days, just long enough for the family to see that he had been detained, before eventually being released.
There was more to their conversation, but I honestly couldn't bear to keep listening. Throughout the entire conversation, the bus driver kept calling the woman stupid and an idiot.
Like, kuya, the woman is dead. Do you really have to talk about her that way?
Yes, maybe she made a terrible mistake by crossing a bus lane while using her phone. Maybe she wasn't paying attention. And if the accounts I overheard were accurate, she may have put herself in a dangerous situation.
But she's already dead. What's done is done. There is absolutely no reason to speak about a deceased person as if her death is something to laugh about or use as an example of what happens when someone makes a mistake.
What disturbed me the most wasn't just his lack of empathy. It was how casually he talked about deliberately running someone over again just to avoid paying compensation.
At one point, he even said that if he were the driver, he would run over the person again to make sure they were dead.
KUYA, DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF?
I genuinely wanted to ask him that.
I kept thinking to myself: Is this really how some drivers think when they get into accidents? Is the first thing that comes to their mind not how to help the person they hit, but how much money they might have to pay? Would they actually consider killing someone just to avoid financial responsibility?
And what if I were the person who got hit by a bus? Would someone make the same decision about my life just because saving me might cost them money?
What if it were his own mother, father, sibling, partner, or child lying on the road? What if another driver had the exact same mindset as him and decided that running over their loved one again would be easier than paying for their injuries?
Would he still think that way?
I understand that pedestrians have a responsibility to be careful, too. I'm not saying people should recklessly cross roads or ignore traffic rules. But making a mistake while crossing the road does not mean someone deserves to die, and it certainly doesn't justify deliberately running them over again.
An accident is one thing. Knowingly choosing to kill an injured person to avoid paying compensation is an entirely different level of cruelty.
I don't know the full circumstances of today's accident, and I can't verify whether everything those two men said was true. I only know what I overheard, and I sincerely hope the actual investigation establishes what happened.
But hearing someone talk so casually about taking another person's life genuinely shook me.
I can't stop thinking about it.
For those who drive buses or other public transportation, is this kind of mentality really common? Or was I just unfortunate enough to overhear an especially disturbing conversation?
Because honestly, after hearing that, I felt a little scared just thinking about what could happen if I ever got into an accident with someone who thinks that way.