no ID, no discount

I and my brother got on a bus on our trip from Santander to Cebu City yesterday. We bought two tickets: a regular ticket for me and an SP (student privilege, discounted ticket) ticket for my brother. The conductor, upon hearing “SP”, immediately asked for an ID. This is pretty normal. Bus companies may have learned from the past that many of those who were availing of the privilege are not really students. Many people get SP's just to save some peso and make a fool of the bus companies in the process. Hence, not so very long ago, they started asking for ID's.

To my surprise though, the conductor did not peruse my brother's ID. He just looked at the ID my brother got out of his pocket. He did not even touch it. Had he looked at the ID, he would have known that my brother graduated early last month and that technically, he is no longer a student. In fact, he is in Cebu right now searching for a job (and trying to get in to law school at the same time). We saved some peso. Good riddance!

About halfway to Cebu, an elderly woman got on the bus and sat right beside me. She asked for a Senior Citizen's discount from the conductor. He then asked for an ID. The woman said she forgot to bring her ID. She ended up paying the regular fare.

How can he not give the lady a discount? He gave my brother a discount without even checking his ID. Yes, my brother can pass for a student. But so can I. I could have tricked him if I wanted to. However, it was very much obvious that the lady was old and therefore deserves the privilege.

I can't blame the conductor though. Asking old people for their Senior Citizen ID Card (and not all old people have ID's) before giving them discounts is one of the loads of crappy things about this country.

ID's are proofs – of being a student, of being a member of an organization, of being an employee of a company, and of many other stuffs. When you are old, you do not need proofs! So why can't we just give old people their rightful discounts? To hell with Senior Citizen's ID's.