jeeep+longfinal

Hey. Come here. I'll ask you something: have you tried hanging on to a jeepney?

I have, a few times, even, and it's a blast. Given that I'm never going to be allowed on rollercoasters (except the kiddie ones), hanging onto jeepney entrances is the next best thing, especially along the Novaliches-Blumentriitt route. Especially at speed along A. Bonifacio avenue, past the Del Monte intersection, drivers can go upwards of 100 mph non-stop, assuming no one halts the jeepney. Few things give me a white-knuckle experience these days, but trying to keep your grip when a driver opens the throttle, all. At the same time, bass-boosted rap music blares out for the whole street to hear and provides an adrenaline rush that keeps me awake long enough to get undressed so I can sleep after school or after a quick trip.

But if you think I'm doing this for sport, you'd be wrong.

Like most workers in a hurry, I hitch up a jeepney to get home as early as possible. Most hangers-on are adult men, often blue-collar workers with distressed backpacks that look as old as their children (if no more), who all pull up to the entrance of a jeepney to wait for a passenger to get off and free up a sea. Some may rest their backs on the railing; others keep a hold of the bar for up to five minutes, with stoplights the only respite (but never lose that handhold!); others, like me, sit on the steps so that they can fit in. Friends and associates of these jeepney drivers also hang along a couple of kilometers to and from a terminal, while shantytown kids use the opportunity to beg for alms or go someplace else for free.

Rarely do I ever see a woman hitch up a jeepney, mostly because skirts billow in the wind, and it's always a gentlemanly practice to keep a seat open for them (the few that do are tomboyish enough to go for it). The elderly almost always get the seat closest to the entrance/exit; passengers with massive cargo go right at the back. At any rate, the etiquette remains the same: use your coins to pay, pass along the fare to the driver, and don't run from both of those obligations (a practice known as 1-2-3 and is something I regret doing back in high school).

This is all to say that hanging onto jeepneys is the last resort afforded to the desperate and the impatient. It doesn't always work, and the risk of losing your grip at speed is high enough that my cardiologist will scold me for doing this. But that also means an average jeepney can serve twenty-four people come rush hour, which, depending on pay rates, can net a driver around Php300 end-to-end. Max gross daily earnings in 2022: Php2,500. That's technically higher than (or at best barely higher than or equal to) my pay rate when I was a contributing writer for an international blog, sure. But I have privileges and luxuries that these drivers and their families don't even get to dream about.