Buses: Vital cog in economic wheel

MANILA, Philippines - The bus is a typical part of everyday urban life in all parts of the world. In the Philippines, the bus symbolizes the vital cog in the wheel of the economy as it facilitates access to jobs, goods, shops, services, and recreational activities.

Alex Yague, executive director of the Provincial Bus Operators Association of the Philippines (PBOAP), summed up the bus’ contribution to the economy without any specific figure but by just one word – history.

Yague explained history would tell the economy begun to show substantial gains when the first and still-surviving provincial bus company, Philtranco, started operations on July 1, 1914. He said Philtranco started to provide the necessary intermodal connections of many rural towns to sea ports and stations of the railway system in Luzon, the Ferrocarril de Manila, which started operations on Nov. 24, 1892 until it became the Philippine National Railways on June 20, 1946.

Starting as Alatco Bus Co. in 1914 and ferrying passengers from Iriga to Naga in Camarines Sur, Philtranco now has a wider operations serving the routes of Southern Tagalog, Bicol, Eastern Visayas, and Mindanao regions through its 34 terminals and sub-stations.

“I could understand if our youth today could hardly relate with the very beautiful and important history of the bus service industry of our country. They should find time to realize that long before the jeepneys, shuttle services, motorcycles and modern rails, public buses have already been providing us the means to transport people, goods and services,” stressed Yague, who once headed Philtranco as its president.

Through many decades, especially through the Second World War, the PBOAP executive director also said there are a number of bus companies that persevered and continue to add to the growth of the industry and the economy.

Right after the war in 1945, Jose Isaac Hernandez immediately resumed his patis (fish sauce), bagoong (fish paste) and rice delivery business using his truck that ran on spare parts mostly from salvaged, scattered American military vehicles.

He would add wooden planks onto his truck to accommodate hitching passengers because public transportation then was rare.

Hernandez’ entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to serve gave rise to his founding the Victory Liner Inc., which has now become to be one of the biggest bus companies in the country serving many routes in Central and Northern Luzon areas.

“We are very proud of our modest history and contribution to help our countrymen recover from the ravages of the war. And we stay committed to doing our duty to transport them and their goods safely and conveniently,” stated Marivic Del Pilar, vice president for Treasury and Marketing of Victory Liner.

Yague said the development and growth of the public bus industry cannot happen without the support of the government through the years. He added government’s policy to prioritize high capacity vehicles for public transportation such as the Bus Rapid Transit system that is a testament to a sound and judicious policy.

Citing the 2010 Metro Manila Urban Transportation Integrated Study, he emphasized that public transportation accounted for 80 percent of all trips. And had these trips been made through the private transportation mode, the costs of labor, goods and services would have been far more expensive than they are today, the PBOAP executive director explained.

He urged the business sector to work with government and the public transportation sector in transforming the transportation system that is beneficial to the economy. He said turning a blind eye and a deaf ear on this issue is tantamount to economic and social suicide, stressing that we should not reach the point that everybody owns a car to go to work.

“When this crucial issue is discussed, I always like quoting Enrique Peñalosa, the visionary mayor of Bogota, Colombia. As he was transforming the public bus transportation system, he always said: ‘An advanced city is not a place where the poor moved about in cars, rather it’s where even the rich use public transportation’,” Yague said.