Philippine Transportation Famine

Managing to get on a bus at 8am can be one of the greatest struggles one could face in a Monday morning. A skillful commuter requires the quintessential qualities of determination, knowledge, foresight, and a bit of luck combined in equal proportions. He must have the running stamina to catch the still running bus, adept in anticipating where the bus would park (while also anticipating the exact point where the bus’ door will open), and the most important, fight his way through the sea of barbaric people wanting to get in. This is a competition where the winners get the seats, while the deprived few are left to stand up in the middle aisle of the bus.

Every single day you have to compete with the professional who is already running late, the student whose first class for the day is about to start, the excited tourist whose spirit you can’t keep down, and of course, the job hunters about to get to an interview. While the aforementioned job titles seem to be the most educated of the Filipino bunch, do not let them fool you! Once the bus goes to a halt, there’s no telling on what they can carry out in order to to get in. They can nudge you with their sikos, use their arms to block your way and secure theirs, and shove you till you out of the sea of passengers. 

With the current state of the transportation in the Philippines, I now declare that we are in the state of Transportation instability! Our people have resorted to violence (see previous paragraph), fighting among themselves, because of this scarcity, the law of supply and demand of transportation is still far from being satisfied, the fuel prices increase each time I watch the TV, and the transportation groups go on to a strike every now and then.

I say we provide more buses of better quality! Let us have those double decked buses they have in China to accommodate more people and at the same fuel expense and lesser effort. Let us convert those near empty buses going to Pasay and Cubao to the jam-packed Avenida buses instead to balance the supply and demand. Let us have a separate license for bus drivers so that they would know that they need to stop while their passengers are alighting, that swerving is not cool, and that passenger hoarding leads to further traffic.

I think I should seriously run for public office someday. 

Photo from www.panoramio.com