The jeepney, that born-in-the-Philippines baroque art on wheels, celebrated its 70th birthday last year. The celebration was quiet; there was no simultaneous blowing of horns recalling the year the US Army surplus was made into the unofficial national ride.
It began as the AC jeep, for auto calesa, when jeeps used by GIs to liberate Manila in late 1944 was repurposed into people carriers.
Instead of uneconomically shipping them back home, US Army jeeps were left here, one of the first reconstruction materials that a country pounded by war would use in rising from the ashes.
In a case of Detroit engineering meeting Pinoy diskarte, its body was lengthened, two parallel benches were bolted on its floor, a roof placed over its head. The roof was of iron sheet so it could lug cargo from bushels of vegetables to screaming pigs. Soon it became the king of the road.
To liven up the algae-green color of its body, Pinoy craftsmen soon bathed it with a riot of colors, transforming its panels into murals of scenes of local life, or whatever subject caught the fancy of the one wielding the paint brush.
Under the hands of these portraitists, jeeps became mobile canvases—tourist brochures showing a smoke-spewing Mayon, for example; or a Bible illustrated with scenes lifted from the Good Book; and textbook Amorsolo-like renditions of bucolic farm life.
Its interior got a makeover, too. Ceilings aped the Sistine Chapel, and like Filipino homes, windows soon sported curtains.
And where once GIs with Carbines sat, the hood became a tableau of kitschy art. The favorite of course were tin metal galloping horses, antedating Mustang’s logo by two decades. This became its signature look that if there were a beauty contest among jeepneys, the number of horses on the hood, and not under it, would boost the chance for winning.
To complete the fiesta look, buntings were festooned from the edge of the roof to the tip of the hood.
Soon enough, jeeps were wearing visors, not as a sunscreen, but to provide the surface with which to write the name of the jeep on. Yes, jeepneys got names, usually after the COO (child of the owner). They may have come from the same cookie-cutter but customization made each jeep different and to complete the process of acquiring its own identity, jeeps were baptized with names, and people actually remember them. So you hear barrio folks then say that they’re waiting for “Pete” to bring them home, or “Betty” will pick up the sacks of rice later.
And also this: before bumper stickers became vogue, messages were inscribed on rear mudguards. Even this, expected to be covered with dirt, was not spared in the bumper-to-bumper accessorizing.
Because jeepneys were extensions of the home, they soon offered in flight entertainment. First came AM radios, with the driver, now the kutsero reincarnated, giving his take on the blistering radio commentary of the day. Later came booming stereos with cassettes.
Even until today some jeeps, and UVs, show movies on small TV screens so their passengers won’t miss their favorite telenovela. If a passenger wants to shift to another channel, the driver can always brush him off with the reminder that “budget airlines don’t offer movies on board.”
But it seems that colorful jeeps, sans for a few pockets in the country I was told, is a disappearing species on the road.
Gone are the PUJs with gaudy, over-the-top livery, that cornucopia of folk art, the likes tourists 20 years ago like to photograph with their Instacamera, the one immortalized in the Hotdog song.
In this age of the Instagram, rarely do you see a tourist take a selfie in front of a jeepney anymore. The image of a jeep screaming with rococo art is found only on yellowed pages of old coffee table books.
It seems they’ve made their last trip years ago. Even the toy jeeps sold in souvenir shops are not an honest rendition on those running on the roads.
Jeepneys today come in one color: 50 shades of grey, ranging from unpainted GI sheet silver to various hues of grey, the latter courtesy of accumulated sooth. Many PUJs are quilts showing a history of metalwork, one section gets dinged or rusted, a replacement patch is welded, never to be painted.
The horses on the hood have long gone to other pastures. The only colors that stain sidings were rubbed off by other vehicles it came in contact with.
Well, this is not a requiem for the once de facto national vehicle. This is more of a longwinded preamble to a challenge to the next leaders of the country on what they plan to do with jeeps.
They remain a workhorse on rural areas and, let’s face it, even a dirty-engine jeep which ferries 200 passengers a day inflict far lesser harm on the ozone layer than 200 brand-new SUVs which carry one passenger each.
Should their drivers be assisted to change their Jurassic engines into new ones? Or totally ditch what they’ve got for e-vehicles? Must there be a moratorium on franchises issued or a freeze in new routes?
Must there be a national standard for the new jeep? Must specs be made uniform in the same way that US war planners in 1940 listed the traits they were looking for a General Purpose (GP) vehicle?
Is it time, for example, to benchmark “a people carrier that can ferry 20, with a fuel efficient body and engine?”
Whatever, but this is just one of the many mass transport headaches awaiting the next tenant of Malacañang.