Whose duty is it to modernize the country’s public transportation system?
Should it have been the traditional jeepney operators and drivers, who were basically, by default, somehow left in charge of a cultural icon and the undisputed “king of the road” that ultimately failed to adapt and evolve, or is it a function of government, which is supposed to be responsible for the macro viewpoint and long term development, as well as has the resources to provide a proper public transportation system for its people?
These days, it would seem that government has passed the buck to the jeepney sector, having demanded them to “modernize” despite knowing fully well how lacking they are in resources. After all, it doesn’t take a genius to look at an average jeepney in this country in order to know what kind of operation it is. Most of these vehicles are ramshackle and dilapidated, running on surplus engines that belch smoke and are equipped with brakes that apparently fail a little too often on average. The driver sits sideways, multitasking as he operates the vehicle, and the only amenity that seems to work is the sound system.
While that is a valid argument for their “modernization” and replacement with a better, safer, more comfortable and more efficient vehicle, which is quite honestly long overdue, the problem with the current modernization program is that it passes almost all of the burden to the jeepney drivers and operators, with barely any help from the government that allowed this degradation to happen over decades of apathy, characterized with a keen lack of vision and ambition for the public transportation sector.
That is why we are having transport strikes, because many jeepney groups still haven’t figured out how to “consolidate” in order to avail of loans and financing to buy themselves these “modern” jeepneys that if you come to think of it, aren’t even modern at all. The only upgrades are that the internal combustion engines that still run on fossil fuels are no longer surplus units, there is air conditioning, and maybe the signboard is electronic instead of hand painted. And while there are a few token EV units, a vast majority of our so-called modern jeepneys wouldn’t be out of place in 1980s USA or Europe.
What the government did to modernize public transport was to simply decree that all jeepneys had to be replaced, with the added threat of canceling all old franchises because only the new units would be granted franchises. That’s as lazy as it gets, considering the importance of public transportation in any modern society, and the awesome resources that government has at its disposal if it really wanted to prioritize a certain issue.
Faced with a rare opportunity to revolutionize a country’s backward public transportation system, our government dropped the ball big time by taking the easy and lazy way out: passing the buck to the mostly impoverished and fragmented jeepney sector. Squandered opportunities like that is proof that quality leadership matters and that is why we should vote wisely instead of stupid.
In case my answer to the question I posed in the beginning of this article isn’t obvious by now, it is most definitely government’s duty to modernize the country’s public transportation system. One that passes the burden is being irresponsible and the people running it have to understand that doing it properly isn’t as simple as making the decree, without providing the massive resources and support that will be required by such an undertaking. As we have seen by now, simply setting a deadline for jeepneys to modernize isn’t going to cut it.
The lack of ambition and vision in this particular modernization effort probably means that all we will get is the “modern jeepney,” but everything else will stay the same. There will still be no stops or schedules, drivers will be packing in passengers like sardines at every opportunity, and the modern version of the “king of the road” will still be stopping anywhere they please. The only improvements will be superficial, like air conditioning and probably less emissions, but the system, or rather the lack of it, will remain the same.
There could be many elegant solutions to choose from when it comes to modernizing the country’s archaic and inefficient public transportation system, but it looks like we are going to miss that bus because of our leaders. Maybe next time, hopefully within this century, maybe they can get it right.*
