Luxury jeep

Metro Manila's king of the road, the jeepney, is open and sits about 14 people—two in front beside the driver and six on each side at the back. I saw this large, colorful jeep parked near Harbour Square one night and wondered about it. I knew that WOW Philippines is the flagship project of our Department of Tourism and it took a little web search to find out what this was. Basically, it's an air-conditioned jeepney—with more comfortable seats, I assume—specially made for tours of Metro Manila. There are several tour packages available, one of which brings you to the nearby province of Pampanga, but you can also buy a hop-on-hop-off ticket from hotel kiosks or from the tour facilitator inside the jeep. Jeepney Tours has a website which lists and describes all the stops and packages available. Though most of the hop-on-hop-off stops are in the cities of Makati and Manila only, one of these days I'll just hop on one of these jeeps and be a tourist for a day in my own metro.

Find more Odd Shots—or post your own—at Katney's Kaboodle.

Hang on

For those who have been intrigued by that uniquely Filipino mode of public transportation, the jeepney, here's what it's like riding in one. It has two long bench-like seats at the sides where passengers sit thigh-to-thigh and elbow-to-elbow when the jeepney is full. There are no seat belts, just bars on the ceiling to hang on to so you don't slip and slide on the seat (especially when the driver makes sudden turns or stops). You pay the driver directly and to do so, you either have to scoot on over beside him (if the jeepney is empty) or the money gets passed from passenger to passenger until it's handed to him (or to you, if you have change). Because he also collects the fare, the driver has to keep track of which passenger has paid and who has not, aside from trying to keep his eye on the road, of course.




Read my title again. I mean it.




I'm not against jeepneys for public transportation. They are very convenient—they can travel routes that big buses cannot because the roads are narrow, and which tricycles cannot because they're too far. But I really think it's high time that they get a complete redesign.

Shopping tour

I first posted a photo of this big, colorful, airconditioned jeepney in December 2008. I've seen it several times since then but only late at night, parked at the end of its tours in Harbour Square. I finally saw it in use at Bonifacio High Street. Apparently, the hop-on-hop-off route of Jeepney Tours includes many of the major shopping and dining centers of Metro Manila.

Going nowhere

I took this photo early last year but didn't want to post it then because I hadn't yet posted a photo of our ubiquitous jeepney, which plays a large part in the painting. Since I finally have, one in November and one in December, I can finally post it. Titled "Jack en Poy," this oil painting by Filipino artist Alfredo Esquillo Jr. was part of the 2008 "Tutok Kargado" exhibit of the Ateneo Art Gallery. The exhibit had a decidedly political flavor, and this piece exemplifies it. "Isang dyip tayo," the text on the ribbon, literally means "we are one jeepney." "Dito–doon" is "here–there." Cockfighting is a popular Filipino betting sport and roosters are a common jeepney hood ornament. "Jack en Poy" is what we call the paper-scissors-rock game—notice the balloons—because of the rhyme we recite when we play it. The rhyme ends with the line "he who loses is the monkey." I think this painting is a great commentary on Philippine society and politics. Guess who loses.

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.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

One of the iconic images associated with the Philippines is the colorful jeepney. For many years, however, there was a scarcity of these motorized works of art on our streets—most of them were either painted with a single color or left completely unpainted. I'm finally seeing more painted jeepneys again, but mostly in the City of Manila.

Owner

The Philippine jeepney that is known abroad is a public transportation vehicle in most of the country. Meet its more private sibling, called the "owner" or "owner-type jeep" to distinguish it from the "passenger jeep." It is closer in design to the original American military surplus jeeps that the jeepney originated from, with vinyl or rubber stretched over the frame for protection from the sun and rain.

---

My Manila will be on autopilot from November 1 to 5. Be well, be good.

Mixed up eras

The mural of a jeepney, an invention after the Philippine-American war, on the wall of the park fronting the Quirino Grandstand has Philippine National Hero Jose Rizal as the driver, and men and women in Spanish colonial era clothes as the passengers. I am sure that they represent other historical figures of the Philippine Revolution, but I wasn't able to get close enough to see.

Stop and shop

Wherever there is a busy transportation stop in Metro Manila, there are sure to be sidewalk vendors. The corner of Taft Avenue and Pedro Gil Street in the City of Manila has a light rail station, buses and jeepneys ply Taft, and Pedro Gil is a jeepney route. The vendors in this particular corner were selling peanuts and kikiam, slippers, sunglasses, and cellphone replacement covers, cases and chargers. And yes, Taft Avenue is named after William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States, who was the first civil governor of the Philippines (1901–1903) after the Spanish American War.

No. 1 Ayala Avenue

Just a block away from yesterday's Ayala Station is the InterContinental Manila, more popularly known here as the InterCon. It is one of several hotels in the Ayala Commercial Center. The hotel was designed in 1969 by Philippine National Artist for Architecture Leandro Locsin (1928–1994). Despite its age, or maybe because of it, the InterCon is still considered one of the best hotels in Metro Manila. Its Suriya Spa and Prince Albert Rotisserie, a French fine dining restaurant which has won numerous awards, are well-known and some of my friends swear that the cheesecake at its Jeepney Deli Shop is the best in town.

A sense of place

It is sometimes tough to get a sense of a place when all you see of it are specific buildings or interiors. So come and join me at Philcoa, a major transportation stop in my part of Quezon City, so called because the landmark government building at the corner of the Quezon Memorial Circle is the Philippine Coconut Authority. The south side of the road, one fork of which leads to the University of the Philippines, has two strip malls. Behind the nearer building is the baratilyo which I love walking through for its bargain clothes.




This is the western end of the strip mall, closest to the Quezon Memorial Circle. Vendors are no longer allowed on the sidewalk, though one still managed to set up her potted plants against the wall. But she's not obstructing pedestrian traffic flow so it's okay. There is a gap between Citimall and another building at the corner, so a few fruit and vegetable vendors have their stalls there.




The green overpass below is where I took the first two pictures from. All these jeepneys are going to northeast Quezon City. GT (Garage to Terminal) Express is another form of public transportation. Mostly Asian utility vehicles (AUVs), they travel fixed routes from one specified station to another specified station and cannot—or should not—load or unload passengers between their two stops. And yes, the guy in the blue shirt inside the jeepney was smiling for me; in fact, he was quite insistent that I include him in my photo.




The gap between Citimall and the corner building is caused by a small creek which runs at the edge of an extremely dense urban poor neighborhood. It used to be choked with garbage, but the community finally learned its lesson when it flooded badly during last year's typhoon Ketsana. It is now relatively clear of solid waste but, unfortunately, not of liquid waste. The stench is still quite bad and, as you can guess from the water's color, the creek is definitely dead.




The street around the corner is lined almost entirely by small enterprises; some are franchises but most are single proprietorships where the seller, repairman, cook or seamstress is the owner. This is also where my tricycle terminal is, so this is where we'll end our walk for now.

And That's My World!

Fifteenth

Today, the Republic of the Philippines welcomes its 15th President. Benigno Aquino III, the son of Ninoy and Cory, is more popularly known as Noynoy. Since his victory in the elections earlier this month, he is now also known as P-Noy, a play on our slang word for Filipino, Pinoy. His formal oath-taking and inaugural address will be at the Rizal Park's Quirino Grandstand in the City of Manila. The inaugural reception with other government officials and the diplomatic corps will be in Malacañang Palace, Mr. Aquino's office and home (in a smaller house in the compound) for the next six years. However, his real home is in Quezon City and, after the formal stuff, he will go to the Quezon Memorial Circle for a big street party. The memorial and fountain have been dolled up with colored lights, and I saw them for myself last night from the pedestrian overpass near my jeepney stop and tricycle station. Of course, with evening rains now quite regular again, party-goers are being asked to bring umbrellas, preferably yellow.




Whatever your faith or beliefs, please say a little prayer for Mr. Aquino and my country. Corruption is deeply embedded and widely rampant in our government, and poverty so pervasive and such an overwhelming problem, that he will need all your good wishes and everyone's help. He will have mine.

Terminal

Since the Manila Metro Rail Transit (MRT) System's last northern station is beside TriNoma mall (see previous post), the mall's management converted a portion of its outdoor parking lot into a transport terminal for jeepneys and their air-conditioned counterparts (Asian Utility Vehicles licensed as public transport vehicles). It's a service to commuters and it probably translates to more customers for the mall too. What's a few shopping errands between the train and the jeepney?

Lanes? What lanes?

Light traffic on Quezon Avenue, one of Metro Manila's longest thoroughfares—the white Quezon Memorial in the distance marks one end of the road—on a Sunday. Most of our roads don't have bike lanes so bicycles share the road with all other vehicles, even though they're really not supposed to be allowed on the major roads anyway. The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) closed off most intersections and instead created U-turn slots; to make sure that turning cars have a lane to drive onto, they set up concrete blocks to keep a lane free, but the blocks themselves eat up into the next lane, creating bottlenecks wherever there are U-turn slots. Major roads have bus and jeepney stops, but since this is a Sunday, there are no traffic enforcers so buses and jeepneys drop off and pick up passengers anywhere. Taxis can do that any time since, with the exception of Makati City, there are no designated stops for them in the metro. And also because of the absence of traffic enforcers, pedestrians are free to risk life and limb crossing at street level, which most would rather do than walking the additional hundred meters to the nearest blue and pink overpass, which is where I took this photo. Imagine what this street looks like during the weekdays. So if you ever hear that Filipinos are some of the world's best defensive drivers, now you know why.

Hold on for dear life

Several years ago, Metro Manila's traffic enforcers were told to be strict against people hanging on to the back of jeepneys, what we call "sabit." But with cops no longer enforcing that rule (I'm not even sure if it was a law or not), commuters are back to their old ways. And no, not all the sabit you will see in our streets are getting a free ride; most of them actually pay the fare.




This was taken through the windshield of our car, so I apologize for the reflections which make the picture look fuzzy.