The iconic jeepney: How it all started

Following the government’s effort to modernize the jeepney industry, I recall how it all started with the legendary iconic jeepney, with all its features and trimmings being distinctly Filipino. Santa Banana!

Bangkok also has its prototype — the “Tuk-tuk” —which is a four-seater tricycle which is more like our own tricycle, except that the Bangkok “tuk-tuk” can seat four passengers.

Well, the iconic Filipino jeepneys began during the early fifties when the United States military dumped all their jeeps in vacant lots at Guam and the Marianas in the Pacific, and started selling them by lot, not per piece.

An enterprising businessman named Emilio Yap from Tacloban, Leyte started buying the surplus American jeeps and brought them all to the Philippines.

Envious Filipino businessmen soon enough accused him of smuggling those jeeps, not aware the enterprising businessman from Leyte, was also a visionary, having plans of making those surplus jeeps the kings of the road.

Yap had the vision he shared with a small Filipino car repair shop in Las Pinas, and converted those bare surplus jeeps into what we know as jeepneys with all their trimmings and decorations which are distinctly Filipino, complete with seating arrangements for 10 passengers facing each other.

I saw those first jeepneys and they became a big hit to commuters.

I, too, during my college days at the Padre Faura ruins of the old Ateneo, was a commuter.

Well, what could I do with only P1 as daily allowance — 30 centavos fare via the jeepney to and from the Ateneo, and 70 centavos for a Ma Mon Luk siopao.

It was really a miracle at being an Ilocano how I could save enough for flowers and greeting cards that I used to send to my favorite Assumptionistas, Assumption College being separated only by a wall from the Ateneo.

As I said, that’s how it began with the distinctly Filipino jeepney which is now being phased out to give way to modernization.

Personally, I believe the efforts of the government to modernize the iconic jeepneys are ill-advised because these old iconic jeepneys are typically and distinctly Filipino, the only one of its kind in the world.

To make them roadworthy for the purpose of modernizing them is to not remove their distinctly Filipino features.

By modernization, all the government has to do is to check all their engines to make them roadworthy.

President Marcos Jr. would do well not to use the word “phase-out” in modernizing the iconic legendary jeepney.

Well, as I said earlier, as a young journalist at the time when Emilio Yap had to face a series of congressional hearings, it was the fault of envious businessmen when they saw an enterprising trader bringing in to the Philippines most of the surplus American jeeps and had them converted into passenger jeepneys.

As a young journalist at that time being the Business Editor of the now defunct Philippines Herald, the only mistake of Yap was he was a very good friend of then Speaker Daniel Romualdez, who had nothing to do at all with the beginnings of the iconic jeepney.

It would not be complete not to say that Emilio Yap later on was also the chairman of a bank, chairman of Philippine President Lines, and the owner of the Manila Bulletin, which he bought from Swiss national Hans Menzi when Menzi was the aide de camp of then President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr.

The rest is history as they say.

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In my earlier column, I urged the government to rectify a big error and a great injustice committed to Mindanaoans and Visayans by having only national heroes from Luzon mentioned and written about in history books, Santa Banana!

The reason for this is that authors of Philippine history books used for public and private schools have been written only by historians of Luzon.

The country is fortunate, however, that we have a Vice President, Sara Duterte, former mayor of Davao City and a Senate President, Migz Zubiri, two high officials, from Mindanao.

It is for this reason, my gulay, to give and to do justice to past Mindanao and Visayan heroes who struggled against the Spanish and American colonial powers to make this rectification.

I’m not a Visayan or Mindanaoan, but an Ilocano, and I would appreciate Visayan and Mindanao historians also to make an effort to make this historical correction for the sake of truth because the only historical figure in Philippine history from the Visayas I can think of was Lapu-lapu, the chieftain of Mactan, who killed Magellan.

Unfortunately, the only thing we can remember of Lapu Lapu is the fish lapu lapu, who I believe richly deserves a better remembrance in Philippine history.

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We have the Senate findings on that unfortunate and embarrassing international incident last January 1, New Year’s Day, when our airspace went zero because our navigational, communication and security systems didn’t function, leaving some 6,500 passengers at NAIA stranded and some 315 flights in and out of the international gateway cancelled.

It was an international embarrassment to say the least.

And yet, all Senator Grace Poe, the Senate chairman of Public Service, after a series of Senate inquiries by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, could say was it was due to incompetence and negligence.

However, there are no findings of accountability by the Civil Aviation Authority since people had expected some heads rolling.

My gulay, no accountability ?

What kind of a Senate do we have, and what kind of a senator is Grace Poe when it is clear it was incompetence and negligence that brought about that fiasco.

However, at a later date, Senator Grace Poe said those responsible must be held accountable.

Sure, the system under the watch of the CAAP is old and antiquated that brought about that fiasco, and we can only blame past and present air transport people, especially the one directly responsible, particular;yu the CAAP officials.

Shall the Senate just leave things at that without establishing accountability?

Is there a guarantee a fiasco which was an international embarrassment will not happen again?

So, what can be done, my gulay?

Replace the system with a new and better system.

But, the Senate finding cleared the CAAP officials that it was all because of incompetence and negligence and that there is nothing that can be done.

Santa Banana, replace the system with a new and better system, that’s what!

It does not take too much matter between the ears to see the need for it, Santa Banana!

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President Marcos Jr. has been in Malacanang for eight months now, and still we do not have a secretary of health, only an officer-in-charge of the Department of Health.

Since Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergiere appears to be doing well as DOH officer- in-charge, it would do well for BBM to name her DOH secretary.

More importantly, President Marcos Jr. has been acting secretary of the Department of Agriculture.

Why can’t he name a permanent DA secretary?

For the last eight months that BBM has been acting as DA secretary, I am sure he knows the problems of the department and the need for updating the agriculture department to attain food self-sufficiency.

More immediately, BBM should crack down on the food prices cartel that has been responsible for the smuggling of products that caused the surge in prices.

That cartel operates like a Mafia-led syndicate and is responsible for too much smuggling and hoarding of agricultural products ,giving rise to high prices.

The country needs a permanent DA secretary since the President is already pre-occupied with other problems of the nation, not only those that threaten development but also national security.

I believe that eight months as head of the DA is long enough for anybody to know the problem of food security.

What BBM did with the presidential communications office by having former LTFRB head Atty. Cheloy Garafil as the head of the Presidential Communications Office was well thought of and having a press briefer is also a good idea, but Santa Banana, eight months for the President to be a temporary secretary of a department is long enough.