WITH HELEN J. CATALBAS
SOME bridges played crucial roles in the history of nations. Others are bedecked with romantic twists and turns as they served as meeting places for ill-fated lovers.
Most bridges were made of permanent materials to last several ages. Others were made of hardwood to last a century. A few were made of ordinary lumberyard wood combined with bamboo.
Still fresh in our mind is the sight of a horde of politicians inspecting a bridge improvement project in a slum area. The bridge suddenly gave way to the weight of the politicians and several of them fell off the broken bridge straight down to the murky water below made doubly polluted with the houses on stilts to the left, right, front and back.
Nothing was heard of the bridge improvement project after that hilariously tragic incident that ruined make up, dirtied immaculate white shirts, slacks and blouses and ruffled feathers.
We were taught in elementary school that our beloved country, the Philippines, was once connected to mainland Asia with massive land bridges. Some claim this accounted for why the early Filipinos, those whose original bloodline was unadulterated by intermarriages with white, yellow or black races, looked similar to inhabitants of our brown Asian neighbors.
Old bridges reverberate with historical accounts of how local guerilla forces defended the city against invading tyrants. It is a shame that many of them have dirty running river or creek below them due to unregulated over population or dilapidated shanties around them. In some cases, big commercial businesses also make some bridges less photogenic or in present day lingo, less Instagrammable owing to the absence of any semblance of vegetation nearby.
Some contemporary bridges are multi-colored horizontal candy bars in the middle of nowhere. They provide a pleasant blending view with the blazing colors provided by a nearby city garden.
Then, as now, bridges play crucial roles in the social, cultural and commercial lives of countries and their people. Some bridges have outlived their original usefulness but some enterprising souls have converted them into cafes and flea markets.
On the other hand we heard of news reports and stories about robberies, murders and even rapes committed on these unsuspecting structures.
But, as time moves on, these stories have all become water under the bridge./PN
