Right now, we are trying to modernize our ailing mass transportation system in a big hurry. We need time. We are not ready for its social consequences. We have set with authoritative force a very short deadline for jeepneys to stop operating under threat of arrest and confiscation.

Those who are campaigning for jeepney modernization are in a hurry for three reasons — 1) they want to pre-empt the protest volcano before it erupts; 2) they want to take over in the quickest way the lucrative mass transportation pie worth trillions of pesos a year; and 3) there is grappling and positioning even among the modernization advocates themselves.

The modernization advocates have deep tentacles in government or are themselves in government.

Government bureaucrats and solons, in a hush-hush conflict of interest, support modernization, forming powerful lobby groups, promulgating laws and policies to justify and implement their sinister take over. They are all over — in the Senate, Congress, and the Cabinet.

Their battle cry is: Modernize the inefficient corrupt environment-destructive jeepney system with an efficient environment-friendly system even if it is expensive and beyond the reach of current jeepney operators. They will be replaced by the corporate fronts of the modernization advocates.

If we deny basic livelihood to millions of the marginalized and their families, we may be inviting massive unrest beyond our control. If we gradually apply this modernization from the hundreds of thousands of jeepneys in Metro Manila to the millions nationwide, we are handing on a silver platter the trillion-peso a year mass transport industry from the helpless can’t-affords to the influential can-affords.

The modernization advocates want to contain any massive protests by commuters by saying the new hiked jeepney rates will not exceed 30 pesos. First, this is a promise based on guesswork, not an in-depth financial study.

Second, even if we assume that they would fulfill their promise, the fare increases of about 300 percent  is still beyond the reach of commuters already beset by the increasing cost of basic goods due to inflation.

Commuters and jeepney operators may form an alliance. Presently, the modernization advocates are happy that current jeepney strikes are failing, due to the fact that drivers and operators have to put food on the dinner table in the immediate situation. But the commuter-operator alliance may plan new meta-legal strategies of protest based on people power principles.

True modernization will take time, perhaps some 10 years, and will require trillions of pesos. It will also require research on local cheaper home-grown alternatives, not expensive foreign ones.

There may be a big collision coming between the protesters and the advocates backed by police and the military, between the immovable object and the irresistible force. This collision is inevitable based on the need for survival of the protesters and the conflict of interest of modernization advocates.

The jeepney modernization is premature because it lacks the in-depth studies needed to orchestrate such a massive complex undertaking affecting almost everyone in the nation. As mentioned, time is of the essence for the modernization advocates wanting to take over.

The first question to ask is — who owns the current mini-buses that are now starting to replace the jeepneys. Commuters have a right to know the names, corporations and equity holders. It will take a long time to replace the hundreds of thousands of jeepneys in Metro Manila alone. But they are fast-tracking this by giving deadlines to the jeepney people (end of the month?) to adhere to the expensive standards of modernization — in the hope that they cannot afford modernization. So that those who have the capital to modernize can take over.

Have our transport people conducted studies on alternatives to the present modernization standards, to make them cheaper based on appropriate technology-based local resources and to avoid expensive export requirements? Why are we jumping from the frying pan into the fire?

As for the environment issue, replacing the jeepney will not stop pollution. It will simply lessen it. The mini-bus replacement will also affect the environment. We presently have strict pollution controls for jeepneys before they can renew their franchises.

We need to do some soul searching and not shoot from the hip. We need to conduct deeper studies. We need to go slow. We need to give assurance that the marginalized who comprise perhaps 80 percent of the mass transport industry are not rendered hungry and destitute. We are making massive changes without a proper pilot trial. We are diving into the unknown based on theories and conflict of interests.