Jeepney Blues

by: Dharel Placido

Jeepneys never fail to keep the roads of the metro busy. With colourful flaglets and meticulous bodywork, they represent the vibrant culture of our country. But as time passes and the rates of oil products going high, these once colorful thoroughfare creatures, along with their driver’s dream of improving their lives, tarnish.

With problems of unstoppable oil price increases comes the plight of the ordinary jeepney drivers which typify the Filipino hardest hit by the crisis. But when the ordinary jeepney drivers are hit, surely, the passengers he carry everyday like students also feel the burden of having to spare some more coins which could have been spent for other things.

In a jeepney route from Dapitan to Quiapo church, one will meet Mang Edong, a family man with four children and has been earning a living from driving for more than three decades. When one looks at his face, his physical features, weathered by fatigue and hunger, become more evident. Mang Edong looks older than he is; 50-years old. The lines on his face are finer and his eyes look deeper. The pollution of the metro and the stress of all sorts have definitely left Mang Edong’s health and perhaps, his dreams as well, into nothingness.

The rising of oil prices seemed like a rope slowly tightening around Mang Edong and his co-jeepney drivers’ neck. When someone pays a big bill to him he would reach to his back pocket and get the other bills, mostly composed of one hundred peso bills, to give as a change. One would think that Mang Edong has earned enough for the day to bring a decent food to the table of his family, but they’re wrong. Mang Edong said that the money in his back pocket is only for the boundary and the purchase of gas whose price has never stopped increasing. The real amount of money he has is in the aluminium box in front of him, which at that time in the late afternoon, only contained several twenty-peso bills and coins. Mang Edong was almost in tears when he looked at his box since after all the energy he spent the entire morning, it was as if he earned nothing.

Just like Mang Edong, students have had their fair share of the burden due to the escalation of gas prices. Jenny, a college student from the University of Santo Tomas, travels from Frisco in Quezon City to Manila everyday. According to her, what used to be an easy 20-minute travel becomes a one-hour ordeal. Even if it seems that the long travel time doesn’t have anything to do with the increase in gas and fare prices, Jenny reasoned out how the current economic problems affect even the simplest affairs of ordinary people such as students like her.

For Jenny, the country is in a domino-effect situation. When the economy goes through a problem, so does the morale of the people. As she experiences it everyday, she demonstrates it this way: When oil companies raise gas prices the jeepney drivers will be subject to anxiety since their already inadequate earnings will have again its cutback. The jeepney drivers in turn will have to exert extra effort and patience in waiting for more passengers to achieve their quotas leaving the onboard passengers waiting until they become irritated. Some of the passengers are mostly students already running late for their classes, while some are employees about to be reprimanded by their bosses. For Jenny, it is not only money and energy that are being consumed, time and productivity, too, are being sacrificed.

Jenny recalls one time where she missed a major quiz on a subject when the driver of the jeepney where she rode persistently waited for passengers to ride on its almost empty jeepney. The driver was stopping at every possible street corner it passed, hopeful that a barrage of passengers might appear and fill his jeep. She tried to understand the dealings of the jeepney driver but she was already on the verge of bursting out and confronting the driver. But being the calm girl that she is, she just got off and transferred to another jeepney.

A simple thing like paying the fare becomes another problem for other students like Sherry who has to ride the jeepney to and fro school. Sherry has probably faced the dilemmas of having to encounter drivers who insist that the student discount is not in effect. According to her, drivers never run out of reasons just so they could get away with not giving student discounts.

At one instance during Quezon City Day, Sherry was travelling on her way to school when the driver demanded that she pay the regular fare since it was a holiday. Surprised, she thought that it was only during national holidays that fare discounts were being suspended. To avoid further arguments, Sherry paid the regular fare. She also recalled one instance wherein another driver demanded for a regular fare since she wasn’t wearing a uniform. Again, to avoid a pointless disagreement, she gave the due amount.

Both Jenny and Sherry said that these are just some of the many experiences ordinary students suffer from the hands of the equally pitiable jeepney drivers. As the gas prices increase, the more the pockets of ordinary citizens become damaged. While mothers are tightening belts to keep the family budget, jeepney drivers are ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ after using the money to pay gas which could have been used for other expenses.

Mang Edong, Jenny and Sherry represent a bulk of the citizens of this country suffering from the continuous increase of gas prices. Their stories remind us that not only the economic conditions of people are being affected, but their entire being as well.