King of the road

The jeepney is unarguably the king of Metro Manila's public transportation system. Our light rail system is still severely limited. Buses ply most major thoroughfares but their size makes them unwieldy for narrower roads. Which is where 'jeeps' come in. You can get to almost anywhere in the metro using only jeeps since their routes criss-cross. Just be prepared to breathe in volumes of polluted air since none of them are enclosed or airconditioned. Neither do they have doors or seatbelts, so you have to hold on to the bar which runs down the length of the jeepney's roof inside. When I was a kid, all jeepneys were elaborately painted with Philippine landscapes, flora and fauna, religious icons and such. Those are rare nowadays but they do still exist. Some, like this jeep which just goes around the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines the whole day, have taken to mobile advertising. And for those places where even jeeps don't have routes, we have tricycles and pedicabs. I don't have a photo of a pedicab yet, but a tricycle is here.