The strikers did their best to make their mass action as widespread as possible. Not through the soundness of their arguments for staging the strike, but by employing their usual methods of harassment, intimidation and threat of violence to force non-strikers to stay off the streets for a day. The methods have come to be expected of drivers who are the poster boys for utter lack of discipline or courtesy on the road.
Several administrations have contemplated proposals to phase out this gaudy Philippine version of a World War II American relic. Always with an eye to their political fortunes, national leaders have let the proposals die a natural death. Officials have tried mightily to project the jeepney as a tourist attraction. But you don’t find foreign visitors here waxing poetic about a slow, bumpy ride in a dirty, noisy, crowded jeepney that is constantly enveloped in its own noxious tailpipe emission, where passengers risk losing their wristwatches and cell phones if they so much as blink from the pollution.
No politician is going to propose phasing out jeepneys in this election season. But once the elections are over, policy-makers should sit down and discuss a rational way of relegating jeepneys to tourist spots such as Fort Santiago. Jeepney operators and drivers will have to be offered viable livelihood alternatives, including incentives for those who want to shift to operating air-conditioned buses and taxi vans.
Lawmakers, meanwhile, should pass laws that will require proof of annual general maintenance before any public utility vehicle is approved for registration. Automobile manufacturers have pointed out that their vehicles will not create so much pollution if properly maintained. Maintenance is a foreign word to most jeepney operators – yet another reason their vehicles should be relegated soon to museums.