Phasing out illegal jeepneys

Jeepney commuting public actually tolerates the absence of both safety and discipline and are just too happy to even get a ride to and from work.

For most people the word “modernization” where it refers to the Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP), whether this targets public utility jeepneys (PUJ) or tricycles, has to do with the motor vehicle itself. For the jeepney organizations protesting the program and have called for continuing transport strikes the word means that the jeepney as we all know it will be phased out. They are not against the modernization of their vehicles; they are against the phaseout of their livelihood as jeepney drivers and operators as they know it.

A cursory review of the PUVMP reveals what exactly is involved and what the word “modernization” means so that there may be no confusion. Confusion reigns because one side is not telling it like it is, while the other is. While indeed there is a substantial amount of modernization being imposed, the unsaid objective pursued is that which is creating the controversy. More than a question of definitions, the issue is more a question of disparate objectives.

To understand, let us focus on what the commuting public and the rest of those on the road would want in an ideal mass transport system servicing a specific niche market as that provided by the jeepneys. While such requisites are similar for public utility buses with the difference only where routes, fares and distances are concerned, allow us to focus on the PUJ as that sector continues to threaten the public with wholesale inconvenience.

Commuters simply want to get from point A to point B.

They want to do it safely. That means not having to ascend or alight from a moving vehicle that merely slows down when passengers climb on or get off.

Doing it safely means not having to run to or jump off in the middle of the road.

Doing it safely means not having a driver who is illiterate, ignorant, disregards ordinances and road safety regulations and drives as if competing in a demolition derby, thus exposing commuters to death by dismemberment or decapitation.

Doing it safely means not having to commute in a rolling coffin whose worn out tires, brakes, electrical systems, radiators and fuel systems are not in working condition and are on the verge of giving out, flaring up, or exploding and killing everyone on board save for the escaping jeepney driver.

The absence of alternative modes of public transformation has cauterized the public’s sense of safety and self-preservation to the point that the foregoing list, while mostly unrelated to the modernity of the vehicle, are traded off.

Unfortunately, the jeepney commuting public actually tolerates the absence of both safety and discipline and are just too happy to even get a ride to and from work. The trade-offs are lost productive hours and compensation — matters now more critical to a jeepney commuting public than safety and jeepney driver discipline.

To understand what the public has suffered with such trade-offs and compromises simply array the utopian jeepney commute, the perfect ride, against what the public is forced to suffer. Note that what sufferance is inflicted has less to do with the modernity or archaic-ness of the jeepney as a public utility transport vehicle as it is a matter of the total absence of discipline.

No longer an icon of ingenuity, the jeepney has come to symbolize everything bad in the Filipino. Most of the safety considerations have to do with the undisciplined jeepney driver and not the vehicle he drives. It is unfortunate that the jeepney commuting public, other motorists and the transportation authorities have surrendered higher ideals due to the lack of options forced by years of cowering to mob-like organizations of jeepney transportation groups.

As we analyze the details of the government’s modernization program, focusing specifically at the minimum capitalization requisites and capital structures, we see an underlying attempt not simply to modernize the vehicle but to professionalize its ownership and operations. It is basically to phase out illegality and inefficiencies and in its place, phase-in discipline.