The woman was directing vehicular traffic

As I walked through the center of Bontoc, I noticed a policewoman standing squarely in the middle of the road. Wearing white gloves and flashing sharp glances, she blew her whistle from time to time and swung her arms wide to direct the flow of traffic. Behind her stood a small hut marked POLICE ASSISTANCE CENTER—something akin to a koban in Japan. Still, here in this mountain town of the Philippines, the “station” was little more than a prefab shack, and whether it truly inspired confidence was open to question.

Unlike the sprawling metropolis of Manila, Bontoc has almost no traffic lights. Instead, traffic control rests largely in the arms and whistles of these policewomen. Not that there’s much traffic to manage in the first place: a few trucks and a scattering of tricycles make up the bulk of it. Yet, once someone dons a uniform and takes their place on the road, they radiate authority—it’s a reminder of how easily humans respond to symbols, with uniforms being perhaps the most powerful of all.

Watching her, I couldn’t help but think: most of her hours must be filled with boredom. Few vehicles, fewer pedestrians, hardly any congestion worth the name. In fact, if traffic lights were installed, her role might vanish altogether. But then again, the town doesn’t have enough traffic to justify such infrastructure, and so the policewoman herself has become a kind of ornament to the streetscape. Ironically, it is precisely because she is “unnecessary” that she becomes such an appealing subject for a traveler’s camera.