Upgrading the jeepney

CAPILLAS

I join the public in praying and hoping that the Energy Development Corp. (EDC) would finish their repairs of the geothermal plants that power up the Visayas Grid by next week so the provinces of Leyte, Samar and Bohol can resume enjoying stable power supply that had been disrupted by the July 6 earthquake.

That calamity could not have been predicted in any humanly way possible, only detected after it occurred. And boy, did it catch people off-guard. Right now, everything is being done to expedite repairs, and Cebu has to do its share to help alleviate the power crisis in these provinces through rotational brownouts.

It could be worse, and is it any small comfort that the brownouts are occurring at a time when the weather is a little cooler thanks to the rainy season?

At least I hope for more rains to cool Metro Cebu and spare its residents from the heat while these brownouts are ongoing.

There would be complaints, of course, mainly on the irregular water supply and the slowdown in work due to the brownouts. Let’s count the days when power supply will normalize and pray as well as hope that the aftershocks would be a lot more manageable.

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Upon learning about the recent order issued by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) for the eventual modernization of passenger jeepneys, I was reminded of a jeepney barker who screamed “Libre WiFi (Free WiFi)!” to passersby in order to entice them to board a jeepney that parked somewhere along a hotel leading up to a line of fast-food outlets at Mango Avenue in Cebu City.

Of course there is no WiFi in the route 12L (Labangon, I think) jeepney boarded by a few passengers, one of whom was myself, but the jeepney barker had to be creative so the driver can give him P5 for his efforts.

So I had to wonder whether the LTFRB order is feasible enough for existing jeepney operators to implement given that they always complain about the rising costs of fuel and spare parts.

The militant among them order their drivers to join them in the streets to attract public attention and support for action on these problems plus the impending order to phase out aging and decrepit passenger jeepneys like the units they are now operating.

But with passenger jeepneys, at least in Cebu City, which are soon to be confined to servicing “feeder routes” for the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, is upgrading the jeepney — a reinvention of the American military jeep that transported US troops in the Philippines in World War II — worth it?

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The answer would be a qualified yes, if only to give commuters a comfortable and accessible transport to and from the BRT units that will be stationed in key areas within Cebu City.

A qualified yes in the sense that investing too much in upgrading the jeepney only for it to be confined, in the case of the BRT to feeder routes, and prohibited from passing through the national highway as mandated by an LTFRB order may not seem a reasonable return of investment for these operators.

Pinoys certainly don’t require flamboyance and regalia in mass transport — just clean, comfortable, affordable and accessible public utility vehicles (PUVs) that can transport them from their point of origin to their destination in as quick and comfortable ride as possible.

Motorists may or may not relate to this common desire among commuters, and some of them like to flaunt their wheels to anyone and engage in drag races a la “The Fast and the Furious” under the cover of night so they cannot appreciate the predicament of the riding public.

Worse, like the jeepneys and other PUVs, a lot of these motorists aggravate the traffic congestion by parking anywhere they please, including sidewalks where they rob the pedestrians of their travel space, even if they can afford to pay for parking space.

Thanks to Uber and GrabCar, motorists now get to earn a profit and compete with PUVs especially taxi operators for passengers, and owing to this still-recent setup, a lot of them are also prone to committing abuse.

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But I digress. Whether sprucing up the passenger jeepneys will win them any more customers or not remains to be seen.

As I was writing this, the militant transport group Piston was planning yet another transport strike for next Monday to raise public awareness for the umpteenth time about their opposition to the phaseout of aging jeepneys.

They may or may not get the sympathy of commuters, who have a lot of things on their plates to even be inconvenienced by their transport strike, but still, you never know.

Personally, I prefer the shift from jeepneys to coasters similar to those used to transport customers of Robinson’s Malls to their Robinson’s Galleria Cebu mall at the North Reclamation Area or the MyBus units of SM.

But that’s just a preference. What I do know is that it’s time that the country rationalizes its mass transport system if it expects its citizens to be more productive, to live more comfortably and improve the conduct of both business and delivery of services to their intended beneficiaries.