Jeepney Sparks
I still have vivid a recollection of my first jeepney ride. I was in third grade, and at that time, my school bus habitually missed picking me up every morning. Whether it was the gross negligence of the school bus driver, or sheer bad luck on my side, it nevertheless earned the volatile ire of my folks and paved the way for what would turn out to be a life-long love-hate affair with the jeepney.
Ask a typical Filipino on the street and he’d probably agree that jeepneys are better off to stay in our streets despite being serious security and safety hazards. (Often, some reckless and irresponsible jeepney drivers cause traffic logjams, tragic freak accidents, and shameless smoke belching.) For one, the jeepney is a cultural phenomenon that is distinctly Pinoy. Who wouldn’t be amused with its decorated wind shields and the slogans bearing the driver’s kid’s names (i.e., Apple Marie, Erica Marie, Jun-Jun, etc.) or any catchy phrase they could think of (e.g., “Katas ng Saudi,” etc.) attached on the rear? Apart from this, jeepneys obviously offer the most cost effective means of public transport. Jeepney drivers often won’t mind that bulky bayongs and baskets are hauled inside their vehicles, and wouldn’t typically fret about how some passengers make their prepubertal children sit on their laps so they could pay for only one.
For some of us, a jeepney ride probably causes more stress than a whole week’s worth of deadlines and paper work in the office. For one, some unscrupulous drivers and barkers would insist on squeezing sixteen passengers inside the vehicle even if the freaking chunk of metal could only fit, albeit uncomfortably, fourteen people. Next are the snooty co-passengers who feign sleep or suddenly turn deaf whenever you say: “Manong, bayad po… Paki-abot naman po ng bayad…” Then there’s always the issue of drivers failing to give you the required change or failing to make the jeep stop despite your eardrum-shattering pleas of “Para po sa may jeepney stop! Para! PARA!!! PARA!!!”
But then again, it should also be extremely stressful to be under the jeepney’s wheel. Most of these drivers don’t even own the vehicles that they are plying. Constantly stressed about coming up with the day’s boundary fee due for his operator at the end of the day, the driver also thinks of food for his family’s table, allowance and school expenses for his kids, and the occasional medical fees. And it doesn’t help that some cheeky passengers would deliberately not pay their fare or in local terms, would commit the “1-2-3.” To make things worse, jeepney drivers are easy prey for corrupt policemen and traffic aides who apprehend them for the slightest violations. At times, these shenanigans in uniform would even ask money from jeepney drivers just because they need cigarettes and merienda money. It’s either that or they confiscate the poor driver’s license for a various reasons both real and imagined.
When I started riding the jeepney way back in 1989, the minimum fare was just one peso (PhP 1.00). However, with rising inflation through the years, and with the price of oil escalating at record levels in the world market, jeepney drivers and operators inevitably demanded for fare increases in recent memory. By the early part of 2005, the minimum fare stood at PhP 5.50. Now, for more bad news – unless you’re wealthy enough to afford your own ride or exclusively ride only cabs, you’re probably aware that the minimum fare now is PhP 7.50, or roughly a 650% increase in sixteen years. Using mental math, that’s more than a 40¢ increase per year since 1989! For the budget conscious and stingy, this is enough news to induce temper flares and sleepless nights. Even an Economics flunker knows that a rise in transportation costs would eventually lead to higher prices of basic goods.
I don’t have official figures but from the looks of it, public transportation is still relatively cheap in the Philippines compared to other countries around the world. Filipinos just probably got too used to having the government deregularize oil imports, thereby making petroleum products and consequently, public transport fees like that of jeepneys cheaper. With the rapidly changing global business climate, I don’t think that the government could sustain oil deregularization, and as a result of this, Filipinos should brace themselves for more increases in the future.
Nowadays, it’s all sparks and brimstone whenever I ride a jeepney. Apparently, most passengers still have a hard time accepting the bitter truth about the fare increase. I’ve been witness to a many heated exchange between a disgruntled passenger and an equally disgruntled driver. Flimsy issues about the driver’s responsibility to post the Land Transportation Office (LTO) memorandum regarding the increase has become the most common source of conflict between the passenger and the driver. A typical verbal tirade would go this way –
Driver: Boss, 5.50 lang ang binigay nyo; kulang pa ng dalawang piso.
Passenger: Ipakita mo yung papeles mo saka kita babayaran! Xerox lang ng papel ang nandito!
Driver: (gets LTO memorandum from secret compartment) Eto…
Passenger: Sa susunod, ipaskil mo ang original dito sa jeep mo!
Driver: Ginawa ko na yan dati pero may gagong nagtanggal. Naabala pa ako dahil kumuha pa ako ng panibago sa LTO…
Passenger: Wag na nang magdahilan… nasa balita na kailangan nasa loob ng jeep ang dokumento!
– The tension inside the jeepney is so intense that it could probably cut through cardboard paper. Often, I could only look away and distract myself to get uninvolved.
As for me, I have no problem about paying an additional two pesos for each jeepney ride I now take. Quite frankly, I think the jeepney drivers and operators deserve this much increase, if not more. However, when I think about it, I probably only have this attitude since I’m lucky to have a job with a competitive salary, and probably because I have a decent understanding of world economics. For now, we’ll have no choice but to let the tensions brew and boil. Eventually, we could only hope that it simmers soon enough to let us all go on with life, and once more, share the broth of brotherhood.
