with Carlos Antonio Leonardia

Just how hard is it to kill or retool the jeepney?

It may be a gaudy cultural icon, but in this modern world where everything else has become greener and more efficient, it is also an embarrassing model of inefficiency and lack of vision of the Filipino people. 

The average Filipino jeepney is powered by surplus engines that belong to scrap heaps, and that makes it one of the most fuel inefficient modes of transportation in the entire planet.  Because of the government’s refusal to intervene in the sorry state of this uniquely Filipino feature of the transport industry, the shortsightedness of the sari-sari mentality that governs business decisions when jeepneys are involved ensures that the backbone of our public transportation industry depends on the rejects of other countries.

And so, in the midst of a global effort to reduce carbon footprints and polluting emissions, our patently inefficient Filipino jeepneys continue to waste fuel and spew forth their brand of evil into our atmosphere.  And nobody is doing anything to make things better.

It is the jeepney that solidifies my suspicion that mandatory emission tests are nothing but a giant moneymaking racket.  After all, how can your favorite smoke emission-testing center be effective if your neighborhood smoke-belching jeepney can manage to pass those tests?  The thousands upon thousands of these aged engines that continuously ply our streets are probably the biggest contributors to the worsening quality of the air in the Philippines and yet they manage to pass these yearly smoke emission tests.

Aside from wasting megaliters of fuel and expelling tons of deadly emissions due to their collective inefficiency, the jeepney is also a terrible people mover.  Because seatbelts are an impossible proposition when it comes to jeepneys, they are essentially unsafe.  Air-conditioning, an amenity that would be most welcome in the sweltering tropical heat that is a signature feature of this country, has proven to be impractical and impossible due to the poor fundamental design of the jeepney. 

So why can we not replace this ubiquitous cultural dinosaur with something better?  Well maybe because due to their sheer numbers, a figure that emphasizes the inefficiency of their trade, jeepney drivers are a political force to reckon with and politicians are scared of them.  Next to the church, jeepney and bus drivers may be the most powerful voting bloc in the land.  When they want to air their displeasure at anything that may upset the status quo, they simply go on strike, and the whole nation feels it.  And since no traditional politician in his or her right mind would agitate such a group, no matter how counter-productive they may be, they will always remain a fixture of the Filipino urban landscape.

Imagine if the jeepney got an upgrade.  Hoping for hybrid or electric engines would be a stretch but still within the realm of possibility but at the very least it should be powered with engines that are fuel efficient and environmentally friendly.  I’d like to think they’d become bigger because spending the same amount of fuel and energy to transport more commuters would definitely be an advantage.  Air conditioning would be nice too.  And since air con jeepneys would be closed, dangerous overloading practices would be eliminated.  Disciplined drivers and designated jeepney stops would also be nice.  In other words, what I want is a bus that just happens to look like jeepney.  If making it look like a jeepney will add to the cost, then I wouldn’t mind screwing culture if it can make our transportation system and our lives better.

Even if such a jeepney were to exist, in numbers that would allow the current crop of dinosaurs to be steadily replaced, how would the government convince the nation’s jeepney drivers to upgrade?  Well if the leader of the nation at that time had any balls, they he (or she) would just declare it so.  To make it easier to swallow, maybe they can drive down costs by waiving taxes and subsidizing the cost or production; buy back the old jeepneys to ensure that it doesn’t terrorize the roads ever again; and provide financing for the balance.  Just make sure to include a clause in the loan agreement that will guarantee payment of the loan as well as provide harsh punishments such as repossession for drivers that continue to violate traffic laws.

In the meantime, while we wait for the day this inevitable march towards the future finally starts; we will have to deal with this relic from the past that has absolutely nothing else going for it apart from the irony of its uniqueness in its ubiquity.