The Economist: Is the Philippine Jeepney the most gorgeous bus in the world?

Original title:

Transport in the Philippines

Not so fast

Jeepneys refuse to give way

Plans for better transport are idling

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THE JEEPNEYS of the Philippines are at once a national treasure and a dirty menace. When American troops went home in 1946, they left behind hundreds of military jeeps. Filipinos fitted them with benches, daubed them with gaudy illustrations and began charging commuters for lifts around town. The originals have now mostly been scrapped, but jerry-rigged replicas remain the most common way for people without cars to navigate big cities. They outnumber buses roughly ten to one.

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This is far from ideal. Ancient diesel engines sputter beneath most jeepneys’ garish bodywork. Transport of all kinds produces close to one-third of the Philippines’ energy-related carbon emissions. By one estimate jeepneys cough out 15% of all the pollution from road vehicles. Riders must often scurry into the street to clamber into the back of one. Jeepney passengers are said to be ten times more likely to experience a road accident than someone in a private car.

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The government would like to see them zoom off into the sunset. In 2017 it decreed that most jeepney drivers would be given three years to swap their bangers for cleaner, safer vehicles that look suspiciously like minibuses. They were promised cheap loans to help buy these machines, which are supposed to come with CCTV and Wi-Fi and which were, at the time, predicted to cost about 1.5m pesos ($28,700) each. But jeepney drivers and operators honked furiously. They said the plans would saddle them with debt while also pushing up fares.

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In the years since then the project has trundled ever further off course. By July 2019 it was being reported that only about 2% of old jeepneys had been upgraded. Not long after that covid-19 began battering drivers’ livelihoods, providing the government with an excuse not to start punishing slowcoaches. In March it declined once again to put its foot down. It said it would start offering jeepney drivers one-year permits allowing them to keep their jaunty jalopies on the road.

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Unless authorities plan to issue endless extensions, they will probably have to conjure up new carrots and sticks. Eric, a jeepney driver in Manila, speaks for many when he says he cannot ever imagine swapping his bright red vehicle for a spiffy new bus. The souped-up replacements have ended up costing more than was expected. And the 300-400 pesos he earns each day is already too little to get by on. The clanking trucks occasionally break down. But he says they are much easier than the newfangled ones to fix.

(Congratulations on reading, this English vocabulary is about 439)

Originally from: The Economist Asia section on April 30, 2022

Intensive reading notes from: The Path to Free English

Translation of this article: Irene

This article edited proofreader: Irene

For personal English learning communication only.

【Supplementary Information】 (from the Internet)

Jeepney is a unique public transport in the Philippines, its low price (an average of less than 10 pesos per time, about 1.5 yuan), easy to ride (beckoning and stopping, the route coverage is large), from the time of birth, it has become the main public transport for Filipinos.

These jeepneys are cool enough! The body of each jeepney is painted with colorful and different patterns, some with biblical characters such as the Virgin Mary and angels, and some with supermen from Marvel movies such as the Hulk, trying to make their beloved jeepney the "most beautiful boy" on the road. In addition to the car paintings full of personality, each jeepney also has its own name, such as "Filipino Warrior", "Highway Ninja", "Dark Angel", etc., which are cleverly integrated into the body paintings. Filipino jeepney drivers often proudly say that you will never find two identical jeepneys in the Philippines. Like the yellow taxis in New York, the jeepney became one of the cultural labels of the Philippines.

After the end of World War II, the retreating U.S. troops in the Pacific Theater left a large number of eliminated Jeep cars, because of the lack of transportation in the Philippines, a musician launched a broken jeep left by the U.S. military, modified the color decoration, increased the length and height of the rear car, replaced the seats with two parallel benches, and the passengers sat opposite each other in the carriage, greatly increasing the passenger capacity of the new jeepney, becoming the first Jeepney in Manila. The term Jeepney is composed of The Combination of Jeep (Jeep) and Jitney (American English Small and Medium-sized Buses).

Decades later, the Philippines has had urban light rail, buses and ride-hailing taxis, but jeepney is still the most used public transport for filipinos, naturally due to low prices and a ubiquitous route network. Jeepney is a public transport, and like taxis, drivers rent from rental companies. The drivers work tirelessly, working 16 hours a day before they finish. The car is rented from the boss, the daily rent is 900 pesos, the money for refueling also costs about 750 yuan, and after running to 1600 yuan every day, the money earned is their own, and there is very little left in the hands. The surplus value of the laborer has long been calculated very precisely by the controllers of capital.

But the jeepney also brought a lot of problems to the rapid development of the Philippines, in terms of road traffic, a large number of jeepney beckoning to stop, and even in order to compete for passengers on the road to change lanes at will, not only easy to cause traffic jams, but also increase the risk of traffic accidents; environmental protection, the existing operation of the jeepney is generally old, has become the main source of pollution pollution in philippine motor vehicle air pollution.

In response to the problems caused by the jeepney, the Philippine government has vigorously promoted the jeepney upgrade plan, not only stipulating the scrapping age of the old jeepney (15 years of scrapping life, which has also attracted many protests and opposition), but also cooperating with a number of car companies to develop electric and clean diesel jeepneys, and equipped with complete safety systems such as seat belts, on-board cameras and speed limiters.

【Key sentences】(3)

THE JEEPNEYS of the Philippines are at once a national treasure and a dirty menace.

The government would like to see them zoom off into the sunset.

Unless authorities plan to issue endless extensions, they will probably have to conjure up new carrots and sticks.

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