SOLVING THE MASS TRANSPORT

By Wilhelmina S. Orozco

Folks, have you ever tried traveling from one city to another in MetroManila? Say you want to go from Quezon City or QC to Makati or vice-versa, without passing through EDSA or taking the MRT train, the trip is truly exhausting and leave you with frayed nerves. Within cities, it is quite all right. But from city to city, it really needs, physically, and that is if you don’t have a private vehicle, a strong body, an alert mind and a very patient disposition.

Let’s start from QC. Supposing you don’t want to join the retrace along EDSA, so you take public transport from Quezon Avenue where you can go to Aurora Boulevard (AB) via Araneta Avenue. I start off from there because I live nearby there. 2. From AB you take the jeepney going to Stop and Shop where you can take the ride to Punta Mandaluyong. 3. From the Mandaluyong market, you can take the jeep going to Padre Faura which passes by the Sta. Ana. Church. 4. From that point you take now the tricycle which brings you to PRC (formerly Philippine Refining Company) and which is no longer there but the initials have stuck) which is near JP Rizal. 5. From PRC you take the jeep going through Pasong Tamo. Or from JP Rizal, you take the jeep going to Guadalupe.  6. The jeep goes through Kalayaan and then you get off at that corner where you can take the jeep that will go straight and reach Ayala Avenue central where all the big malls are – Greenbelts 1 to 5-  and Landmark.

Six rides mind you and that could be 20 to 40 minutes per ride depending on the traffic. If the jeepney drivers elect to sweep all the passengers along the way, then it’s your karma if you are late for an appointment or a date. 6 x 8 = P48.

Now, as I sometimes go to Tondo at Smokey Mountain (SM) to do some volunteer work, (1) I travel from Araneta Avenue and take the tricycle going to Balic-Balic Galas market (P20). (2) Then I take the jeep with a Quiapo signboard, and which passes through G. Tuason – I then get off at Lardizabal Street where (3) I take the jeep going to Tayuman. (4) From here I take Pritil jeep and get off near the market where (5) I take the jeep going to Navotas. (6) I get off at a boulevard where all those jeeps coming from Balut, Navotas, Sangandaan pass through. (7) I take the tricycle which brings me to the site exactly – the entrance to the relocation condominium for the settlers of SM. 7 x 8 = 56 pesos. Back and forth that would be P112. For a daily earner that is a lot of money already, about 32% of the take home pay of P350 leaving the individual with P238 for food.

With the expensive cost of living in MetroManila, I am still wondering why our kababayan insist on residing here when in the provinces they can still have breezy surroundings and green scenery. I think the pull of visual attractions of the malls and daily doses of TV programs that dish out the lives of the rich and famous movie and TV stars some narcoticizes them to stick around.

It was a breeze for me to travel around London and New York in the 80’s and 90’s respectively. Transportation was cheap  and you can be sure of getting a safe ride. The buses and underground trains are programmed to come on time. The bus drivers do not hurry to reach their destinations because every stop says that the bus passes there every 15 or 30 minutes. I don’t really know what penalties they incur should they come late or earlier, but what I am saying here is that mass transport in these big cities is very much appreciated.

What mass transport do we have? Look at the trains traveling from Tutuban and passing through Blumentritt, Sta. Mesa, all the way to Alabang (which I had taken a few times on my way to meet a friend who lives in Ayala Alabang, would you believe? I am lucky to have one with whom I go swimming at her place.) . They are packed full especially at rush hours. One time, I thought my ribs would crack at the push and pull of crowds.

Then at another time, the train took so long to come, more than an hour and the people waited through it.

Before, when the trains were still dilapidated and green, now they are shiny silver, even the rooftops were filled with men travelers. And when you pass through Pandacan and other urban poor sites, you’d be lucky not to be touched by a bag of “yaki goodies” which the lumpen gangsters throw right smack through the window. I always rode the coaches with steel grills and so was lucky enough to evade them.

Nowadays, these trains are air-conditioned, smell nice, and that is if you travel during the few hours that they carry less passengers than “normal” and that is sardine-packedful.

I wonder now why the coaches remain at their numerical level, unable to give a ride where there are only a few people standing up. By the way, you should see the buses from Makati to Manila. The crowd is too much, people are standing up on the aisles and the aircon is not enough to cool it because of too much breathing out of carbon dioxide of the passengers. The conductors and drivers connive to make hay every 5 to 7 during rush hours, probably one reason is because there are some passengers who no longer bother to get their tickets and so their payments find their way to the pockets of the workers instead of the owners.

Truly, Folks, mass transport is what the government has to look into, more gravely. I don’t believe in giving it to private corporations because surely, the fares would jack up. We can keep the jeepneys because they are what identify us to the world. We are the only that have them, no one else. And so, that is the historical legacy of our historical past, when enterprising people made a vehicle for the living out of a jeepney  that used to go to war and carry the dead.

Efficient and cheap mass transport will propel our development to faster heights. The people will be energized to go to work and earn a living. Artists will welcome all kinds of experiences which they can reflect on their artworks depicting the lives of people – from all strata – and the scenery. Children will rejoice at new experiences in visiting places.

I think that it is the strong workers’ movement in the west which caused the building of vast mass transport systems there that served their needs very much for a healthy livelihood. Well, the movement here is too weak to challenge the government to what is the right direction to curbing the greed of oil companies which raises the prices of oil products and which then cause the increase in fares all the time.

Anyway, if mass transport should ever be mulled over, then one aspect that is necessary is how to connect the various routes together into just two or three trips, Jeep routes must be lengthened, say from Pritil Market to Galas Market should just be one travel. Jeep routes from Andres Bonifacio Drive in Caloocan, through Araneta Avenue and Aurora Boulevard should be another route.

We needed more lengthy routes of jeepneys as we can’t possibly be spending our time going from one place to another in cities especially in those that have lost their allure. To do this, I think we need the participation of everyone, commuters, professionals, artist-landscapists and visualists – teachers, etcetera.

We have many things to do and can do in this world that would be more earthshaking than sitting down sleeping or standing up and being thrown from one side to another as the inside buses that race to reach their daily quota.

Let us make this a serious endeavor while we still have time to think of the future.

A plan for a good mass transport that will calculate how many coaches are needed to carry 500,000 passengers daily on these trains is very much imperative.