jeepney love

Traffic is bad if one takes a daily commute of at least an hour to travel, one way, 8 kilometers. I can jog 8 kilometers in less than an hour but I'll arrive sweating in the office :)

According to LTO's statistics of 2008, registered jeepneys across the Philippines number around 202,285. And if we include the tricycle drivers, the number expands to over 800,000. That does not include the sidecar drivers and the "walang prangkisa drivers" :)

That digit represents close to 3% of the employed Filipinos. What makes this situation simply not an engineering problem is that any move to make our transportation system in Metro Manila more efficient will result to unemployment to one of the least flexible part of our Filipino workforce. Suddenly, the mathematical models of quants won't be enough. Political savvy is needed :)

And further aggravating the situation is the fact that if we do not improve this situation, our air in the metro will get worse. And the number one victim of bad air are the growing children. And the majority of these growing children are the very children of our hardworking jeepney drivers. And if we get into the effects of carbon monoxide, jeepneys' exhaust, to a child's brain development, this blog entry will start to feel like Crime and Punishment :)

But why do we have jeepneys in the first place? And why are they only abundant in the Philippines?

After some alpha-numeric entries in Google, I came to understand that jeepneys were the American way of rebuilding the obliterated transportation system of the Philippines after World War 2. It was suppose to be a short term fix to get the country, literally and figuratively, moving. And of course, it was also a "brilliant" and low-barrier American solution to give employment to a war-torn Philippines.

I mean, why would the Americans build American transportation systems in the Philippines that will amount to millions of dollars in 1940s money, when they can cheaply sell to the Filipinos scrap US Army Jeepney and let the Filipino transform it to public utility vehicles that can run in World War 2 torn roads? It does not make American economic sense :)

My curiosity was stirred as to whose idea was it to declare the Philippines as an independent nation roughly less than a year remove from World War 2. Historians describe the state of the Philippines after the war as the second most devastated country. Next only to Germany. And we were an independent nation after how many months? Who is suppose to pay for all the destruction that my country suffered? But that curiosity is a subject of another blog entry :)

Now, back to jeepney love :)

Apparently, it is because of this "cheaply-sell-scrap-jeepney-to-Filipinos-and-let-them-transform-it-to-a-public-utility-vehicles" solution's easy implementation characteristics and the immediate money that came to the Filipino driver's hand proves to be the culprit of our "1-hour commute for a 8-kilometer distance" situation of today. Money came in easy. I mean, this was in the 40s and the 50s, with few drivers plying the routes, and economic activity being coaxed, money will come easy. But because of these easy money, the thinkers, the politicians and the leaders forgot that the jeepney, a Philippine cultural icon, was simply a short-term fix. They forgot that they should be building a better transportation system.

So now, we are here.

I have a feeling that if we do not realize that the jeepneys were simply and fundamentally a short term fix, the children of our noble and hardworking jeepney drivers will continue with their highly disadvantaged beginnings and suffer. What does it take before we even consider that making jeepneys run on LPG is not enough?

Where are the leaders that's suppose to solve this problem? Where are youth that will have to sacrifice in order for the next next generation will have a better chance? And what can I do to help? To contribute?

"... why think like mere men?"