A Paper on Mr. Cabrera's Works by: Ryan A Azcarraga

       The comic that I chose from Josua Cabrera’s exhibit were the ones that depicted scenes of traffic (see picture in next page). I believe that this comics depicted a problem that we have here in the Philippines, especially in highly urbanized places, which is traffic. A very good example is in Manila, from what I have heard the traffic there is insane and it really took you time to go to places especially during rush hours.

The comic strip above titled Mambaling, showed two red and blue characters sitting on a truck saying “Mambaling na ta!” and in the next scene they were still in the same place, but it was already night time. I think that this explicitly tells us that there really is a problem with traffic here in Cebu, especially in Mambaling. In the following comics below it, the scenes also explicitly depict traffic and the different scenarios that it has become a problem for the people. It depicted narrow roads, from the drawing of the bottleneck for cars which made it very difficult for cars to move. It also showed the difficulty of people to cross streets because of the many cars that try to pass by, as shown from the hulk pushing the cars to the side.

            I think that these comics were purposely placed together to show a problem that we have here in the Philippines. Traffic is really a big problem for a lot of people, and it can really be tiring for a lot of people to have to commute long distances, especially for students and professionals that have to go to school or work on time. I think that these comic strips really reflect on the issue on traffic that we have here in the Philippines especially in urbanized places. I think that the comic strips really did a good job on explicitly portraying the issue on traffic through the representation of comics.