Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on email
Email

Pissed

The other day I was walking from the office to the grocery to buy something, and during that short walk to buy an item I needed to make my oatmeal baon more palatable, I saw three guys peeing at the sidewalk and that was when I knew that they would be a topic in a future article.

The first guy was a taxi driver, parked just outside the office’s back gate. This guy employed the usual “open the door to create a cubicle” tactic to pee and I had just stepped out of the gate as he was doing his thing. A few meters away, across the street, was the second guy who had parked his red pickup truck to pee into a pair of utility posts that gave him some cover. On my way back from the quick grocery run, the third guy was also across the road, parked and also obviously peeing against another utility pole.

The two guys who were peeing on the utility poles were doing it along a new-ish MassKara-themed mural which was created by local artists a couple of months ago, making it a bit of a tourist attraction if you come to think of it. But I guess the presence of the utility poles there were too tempting and they really couldn’t hold it in anymore, so they let it rip right there. They were lucky there were no social media influencers or vloggers who were featuring that mural during that time, or Bacolod would’ve been known as the city where peeing in public is normal.

Unsurprisingly, because it is near 3 schools and the highway, outside my house is also a common place to piss. It is not surprising to chance upon someone pissing into a tree or the open canal beside my gate just as I turn into my driveway. Since they are in midstream at that time, all the pissers can do is try to slightly turn their birdies away from my car window while I wait for the gate to open.

There is no explanation for the tendency of Filipino men to pee in public, but the lack of decent public restrooms. If you come to think of it, the only public restroom I know in any town or city in the Philippines is the possibility of one at the town plaza. For those who need to urinate or poop, the next best chance would be a gasoline station or the nearest shopping mall. Those that must pee in a proper toilet will have to look for a coffee shop or restaurant, where they might have to purchase something if they don’t want to do it on the sidewalk.

Aside from the lack of public restrooms, peeing in public is commonplace because it is tolerated and normalized by both the public and public officials. We may frown or be disgusted by it, but most of us just let it go when we see the men doing the stance, knowing how it feels to have a full bladder and nowhere to go when nature calls.

I remember seeing a few DIY public urinals on my random walks that I sometimes like to take. The thing with those urinals is that they weren’t really any different from peeing in public since there was neither privacy for the pisser nor a proper drain for the pee. It’s just basically a plastic bucket or PVC pipe, still along the sidewalk, that we are supposed to stick your pee into. The drain doesn’t go anywhere special, it just leads the piss a few feet away from the pisser, but still into the road, mostly. It’s basically still pissing in public, and that’s probably why that sort of solution never really picked up.

What is the reason why we cannot have decent public restrooms? Is it because our public officials cannot be bothered, or have they tried in the past and we the users just messed it up so badly they simply gave up? Why can’t Filipino public restrooms be clean and not stink of piss and shit, which honestly make it worse than pissing in public, where at least it doesn’t stink as much. On the plus side, if you do it on the sidewalk, there is no one to judge your aim.

As it seems to be that there are no more attempts to provide public restrooms in this country, is this going to be the way things are? Guys can just stop anywhere that looks convenient, extract their penises, urinate, and then just hope that it rains soon to wash the stink away. Is this what we get for being unable to take care of the few public restrooms that were put up in the past? Is there any chance that a proper public-private partnership can still make the pissing situation better for the next generation of Filipinos?*

ARCHIVES

Read Article by date

February 2025
MTWTFSS
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
2425262728 

Get your copy of the Visayan Daily Star everyday!

Avail of the FREE 30-day trial.