BENCHWARMER
Ramon
Dacawi
(The following piece
finds print for the nth time, this time hopefully getting the attention of land
transportation authorities now that the government is serious in modernizing
our jeepneys for the sake of lowering their contribution to pollution,
improving their safety and making jeepney rides convenient to the public. -
RD)
I almost
got in trouble one time with a fellow aging passenger over the unrealistic
seating capacity of our jeepneys. Transport officials who set
and implement standards ignore this simply because they don’t ride mass
transport. They ride in their own cars or office-issued vehicles driven by
government-paid pilots.
Even with
the Filipino’s average bantam size, each of the twin benches approved and
certified by the government franchising agency for 10 is often just
enough for nine passengers. A so-called nine-seater fits eight, and an
eight-seater is actually made for seven, even with the Pinoy
capacity to constrict and adjust to the givens.
It’s
embarrassing, truly inconvenient for the last two passengers to fill either
jeepney row to incapacity. Often, they have to inch their way through baggage
to the innermost space, just behind the driver. Earlier passengers spare
themselves that inconvenience when they alight by sitting nearest the exit,
also to spare themselves from passing on fares to the driver.
With
a misplaced sense of urgency and need for self-comfort, they immediately pass
on their fare to the last passenger, for the latter to pass on to
the driver even before he or she could attempt to settle down or
whip out his or her own fare.
The last
two in can’t squeeze in or won’t even try, especially when sandwiched between
two of the opposite sex. They’re just lucky if the overhead support bars are
long enough for them to grip. Otherwise, it’s a balancing act until a passenger
alights and temporarily allows space.
Chances are
another passenger standing and hanging on the tail-end bars fills in the gap or
the driver loads in another. The last two will find their protruding knuckles
(and heads) knocking each other when “patay malisya” fellow fares grudgingly
give them inches of space directly facing each other.
We have
gone a long way since the days of the auto calesa, those Willys and Eisenhower
military jeeps converted into more realistic three-seaters. The jeepney has
expanded, only to fall short of the convenience that those war surplus machines
used to provide.
Transport
officials approving franchises now hardly consider passenger seating – and even
road – capacity. After all, they don’t ride jeepneys like we, lesser mortals,
do. It would be most ironic and embarrassing for them who
approve transport franchises not to have their own service
vehicles.
Perhaps it
was his thin frame that encouraged my fellow passenger, who came in last, to be
loud in his demand for space. He announced for all to hear that those two
behind the front backrest were sitting like kings.
He was
referring to me and a lady who found it difficult to press herself against the
slanted (\) front back rest. She did press herself in anyway when she heard,
allowing me to do the same.
The lady
alighted first and then it was my turn. On my way out, I had a look at the
fellow passenger who, I presumed was already a dual citizen (Filipino and
senior) like me or soon to be. I gently tapped him on the shoulder and told him
it was not me but the lady who didn’t “dimmenden”. He took that as an affront
and chastised me for looking at him. “Kumita ka pay laeng,” he bristled, making
it sound like a threat.
After
stepping down, I looked back to see him threatening to go down after me. I did
a counter, threatening to get back in for him. I guess we both knew we wouldn’t
dare as, in no time, the jeep moved him on, away from me. While
preparing supper for my ward at home, I thought aging truly makes one cranky
and hard to please.
Lest this
would trigger protests from jeepney drivers and operators, my point is
prospective. Let their existing units continue filling up according to their
approved capacity. Have transport officials start adjusting and imposing
seating standards on units still to be manufactured and sold.
They can do
this with admirable efficiency and accuracy, as they are when they compute
registration and fare adjustment fees they impose on jeepney and taxi
operators. Or with the same urgency that they had approved new franchises that
now gives Baguio the distinction of having the most number of units compared to
population. We now have enough for us to mount a taxi or jeepney festival, if
only tourism-oriented people can catch my drift.
As
it is, over-sized Filipinos are obviously the most disadvantaged, the most
“marginalized” (to use that development jargon) among commuters. They have to
ride taxis or drive a hand-me-downs, lest they be accused of denying fellow
passengers space on the jeepney bench.
Rural folks
are more tolerant of riding with each other within the givens than us, city
commuters. They are used to clambering up to the roof of the single unit for that
single, one and only trip to the poblacion in the morning and back to the
village in the afternoon.
The
need for mass transport to speed up progress was fully understood by
the late guerrilla leader, former Benguet Gov. Bado Dangwa. He designed buses with
no aisles to maximize seating capacity. Entrances were on each side of each
wooden row long enough to accommodate seven. He had each unit hard-topped for
heavy baggage and, if necessary, extra passengers on the roof deck so no one
would be left behind.
That
ingenious, practical system of full accommodation, however, didn’t sit well
with a city-bred police officer who tried to stop a bus brimming with people
and baggage. The story was e-mailed to me by expatriate Jorge
Pawid, he of Kiangan and Ibaloy blood who, like any expat, longs to
see a jeepney pass by his home in California. He swore it was the latest Ifugao
joke, but which he related in the Ibaloy version.
The bus
driver, an Ifugao, ignored the police officer’s signal to stop and
just drove on, like he never saw the latter. The officer jotted down
the bus plate number then gave chase in his service vehicle. He found the bus
and the driver at the Dangwa station.
“Apay nga
saan ka nga simmardeng idi parparaen ka gapu overloading ka?,” he demanded to
know.
“Hanak nga
simmaldeng a ta, kas nakitam
met, awanen lugal mo ditoy bus ko nga
napunpunno,” the driver replied. “Kababain met a kenka nga opisyal nga
agtakdel.”(e-mail: mondaxbench@yahoo.com/ecowalkmondax@gmail.com for
comments).
No comments:
Post a Comment