The Evolution of the Jeepney and Transit in Metro Iloilo

By Ian Malczewski

EARLY every morning, after the roosters’ shrill call, a creature rises in Metro Iloilo, snarling, burping, and chewing the earth as its crawls. With a skeleton of steel and a heart that pumps oil, it carries people in its belly, shaking them from side to side. This creature is the jeepney, a mode of public transportation, and at times it seems to outnumber all the other creatures in the region, even the people.

Public transportation is a key feature of the public realm. It not only transports people across the region, but it also ties them together within it, forging a sense of shared identity. Transit is a mobile architecture, a moving landmark that defines a sense of place, like London’s Underground, Toronto’s Red Rocket streetcars, or Thailand’s countless tuk-tuks.

Metro Iloilo boasts its own iconic transit in the jeepney. Originating from salvaged World War II American jeeps, jeepneys are symbols of Filipino ingenuity, maximizing productivity out of what others considered scrap. Their presence reminds us that public transit here originated with the spirit of re-use, an important environmental principle.

Because of this origin, the jeepney is an enduring and important cultural icon. As a means of efficient mass transportation, however, it leaves much to be desired. Jeepneys are too small to accommodate high capacities, and their sheer numbers make streets congested and hostile for people. As the Metro Iloilo Guimaras region grows, the jeepney and the transit network must evolve to meet the needs of its populace. Here are a few ways this evolution might occur:

Maxi-Jeepneys:

Recently, Iloilo City enacted a Provincial Boundary Ordinance, banning jeepneys from Oton, Santa Barbara, Leganes, Pavia, and San Miguel from entering the city. While this stops one problem – that of vehicle congestion in the city – it creates another by making the commute from these municipalities into Iloilo City difficult, fragmenting what should be a unified whole.

“Maxi-jeeps” (as in “maximum”) would be new, higher capacity vehicles that would carry as much as three times the capacity of a regular jeep. An amendment to the Ordinance could allow higher-capacity jeeps to travel into each municipality, effectively removing two vehicles for every maxi-jeep on the road.

Of course, they would have to be extravagantly decorated as well. Public utility vehicles would not feel right if they did not have names like “Sweet Express” or “Glory of God!”

E-jeepneys:

Decreasing air quality means more of us are placing handkerchiefs over our mouths and noses as we walk down the street. After traffic congestion, air pollution is the most noticeable output of the current fleet of jeepneys.

In Manila and a handful of other cities, new vehicles have been tested as a sustainable replacement for the older, more polluting fleet. These new “e-jeepneys” (The “e” stands for “electric”) run on a battery charged by plugging it into the wall, so they do not require air-polluting fuel. They are also quieter than conventional jeeps.

If service between municipalities were provided by maxi-jeeps, transit within the municipality would be provided by e-jeeps. As older jeeps reach the end of their life, e-jeeps could replace them, meaning the reduction would only occur in pollution, not service.

These evolutions are by no means the only (or even the best) solutions for transit in Metro Iloilo, but they are the kind of transition we need to think about as environmental and economic realities require us to shift the way we think about transportation. By implementing such ideas, Metro Iloilo would reproduce the symbolic cultural and environmental principles associated with the jeepney, honouring the past while taking steps to ensure the sustainability of the future.

In morning of that future, after the call of the rooster, the only sound will be that of people moving and breathing more easily in the city, all with the help of the newly evolved jeep.

Ian Malczewsky's tour of Iloilo

Read the more of his stories about Iloilo at Spacing Toronto.

Spacing correspondent Ian Malczewski is spending the summer interning with the Canadian Urban Institute in Iloilo City, the Philippines. Over the next few weeks he will share his observations of its public spaces.

Iloilo City, Philippines - During World War II, the Philippines was a battleground between Allied Forces and the Japanese, and many of the country’s cities still bear visible scars from this time. The capital city was essentially annihilated during the fierce Battle of Manila, and the devastation was such that the city lost nearly its entire stock of cultural and heritage landmarks, earning it the dubious title of the “Warsaw of Asia.” The ensuing redevelopment resulted in a sprawling placelessness that most urban thinkers would associate with suburbia, but positive legacies also emerged. Few of these legacies contribute more to the urban fabric of the Philippines than the jeepney.

At the end of the war, the Americans abandoned and sold their jeeps to the local population, who, desperate for public transportation, quickly adapted them to fit their needs. They gutted the jeeps to hold more passengers, outfitted them with flashy designs, and set them loose on the recovering cities. Now called jeepneys, they are a staple on Filipino streets, with new ones manufactured locally.

Jeepneys are formidable creatures. The ones in Manila are mean metal mothers with blinding chrome finishes, charging through the streets with a presence unmatched on North American roads. The jeepneys in Iloilo are no less impressive. You often hear them before you see them; recycled and refurbished diesel engines give jeepneys a roar that drowns out just about every other sound. Better still, some drivers crank their stereos, which can be either very good or very bad depending his taste. It’s a surreal experience to barrel along bumpy roads while listening to Guns ‘n Roses, watching passengers sing along word-for-word.

The design of the jeeps is probably their most endearing feature. Most have a name painted above their windshield that never fails to elicit a smile; I’ve ridden in the “Sweet Express,” the “Grace of God,” the “Rebel Active,” “Jojo,” and dozens of other creatively named vehicles. Some are mysteriously plastered with Canadian flags, and I’ve seen at least one “Vancouver Express,” though none referencing Toronto. As opposed to transit in Toronto, most jeeps here are free from private advertising, instead expressing individual flare while forming part of larger collective identity.

Though they have many features of public transit, jeepneys also bear similarities to taxis. You can flag a jeep down just about anywhere on its route, and you can ask to be let off anywhere convenient, too. Fares are paid by passing cash up to the driver, who counts it, distributes change, steers the jeep, shifts gears, and maintains text message conversations in what can only be described as an act of multi-tasking mastery. Sometimes drivers stop the vehicle in the middle of the road to buy smokes, or, as I witnessed during my first week, to get out of the jeep and pee on the closest available fence.

Despite their charm, jeepneys can be very frustrating for someone accustomed to the meticulously managed system in Toronto. Signs painted on the side of the jeep and taped to the inside of its front window give a general idea of its route, but this is sometimes little more than a guideline. The complete lack of any kind of route map or regularly spaced stops means that a ride on an unfamiliar route results in an unscripted adventure. Fortunately, the people are friendly enough to help out wandering visitors, so staying lost is usually not a problem. Given that the culture is much more laid back in Iloilo than it is in Toronto, this “inefficiency” is something I’ve come to enjoy: it’s hard to imagine an passionate debate emerging from a temporarily delayed ride.

Like most transit systems in the world, demand exceeds supply during peak hours. In the evening I’ve waited upwards of 45 minutes for a jeep with an available seat, only managing to get aboard by jumping on the back when driver slowed down. Holding on to the back of a moving vehicle is something we just don’t get to experience in Toronto — and for good reason — but despite the obvious safety risk, it’s incredible fun. Sometimes whole groups of high school kids will pile on to the back — even if the jeep has available seats — in a harmless public expression of teenage rebellion.

While they might not be the most efficient or environmentally friendly form of public transit, jeepneys are one of my favourite features of the cityscape in the Philippines. Despite the fact that I recently bought a bicycle to try and reduce the time of my evening commute, I still find myself wanting to grab on to the back of the Sweet Express and ride its hulking mass back home.

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