The bus: A plea for safer transport

In my kindergarten days, my mom and I would travel several times a year to visit her family’s place. We'd take the bus and, back then, the roads were not as paved as they are now.

The trip probably took 10 hours from where we used to reside in Davao City to Butuan City. 

 

When we would stop over a station, vendors would get on the bus and shout: “Itlog, manoy, orange.” (Thank God for commas. Without them, those three words up there would sound, uhm, funny. As in the book about the “panda who eat shoots and leaves.”)

 

I once stayed for a few days in Pampanga at the house of my former office mate Cherryl. Her family warmly accommodated me for the holidays. I cherish those times with them. I remember having gone to the station at D. Jose. I rode the bus and got to Floridablanca on my own.

 

Last weekend, my family and I had a great time in Baguio City, just in time for the opening of Panagbenga. And, to get there, my mom, my five siblings and I, took the bus. With one tablet of bonamine, of course. 

 

I feel blessed with these beautiful memories of buses, bus stations, and vendors. But last week, a bus lost its brakes and fell into a deep ravine in the mountains. Then, I thought of the bus that fell off the Skyway, and the bus that rammed into a loading area. And the bus that collided with a private vehicle. All of those buses claimed lives.

 

Then, it becomes heartbreaking.

 

But this is not about “just A bus,” nor is this any more about that mode of public transport. 

 

It is not about, “Uy, sino pang walang ticket dyan?” anymore It is not about wishing, for your very own 4-wheel-drive, so you can travel off-road. It isn't about the excitement of traveling alone and meeting your future spouse on the bus any more. It isn't about sitting beside a fellow passenger with a panning basket full of vegetables. This isn't about a rooster in the compartment of the bus. It is not just a ”long trip, or trip, trip” as comedian Tado wrote on his Instagram, hours before he died when the bus he rode plunged into a ravine.

 

It is not anymore about the bus driver stripped of his license. It is not anymore about how frequent the bus franchise is suspended (for the time being), or how fast they get back on the road after operations have just been held off. It is not about the number of criminal charges the owners of buses receive anymore.

 

What this is, is about the importance of Filipinos relying on public transport in their daily lives.

 

It is getting from point A to B, and living life. It is about bringing every passenger to work and getting there on time. It is about helping communities, enriching lives. It is an outreach program. It is a company outing. It is inviting foreigners to see scenic places in this land. It is that family vacation. It is a child’s birthday celebration. It is about friends and families praying that their love ones will return home, safe and sound.

 

It is about getting on transport – thought to be thoroughly checked and maintained – and about entrusting lives to the hands of someone thought to be equipped, to drive them to their destination.

 

Must the buses in this country be a measure of the Filipino’s longevity? Must they take lives?

And say, what? That what all those people did wrong was to get on the bus, then leave everything to fate and destiny.

 

The frequency of how much buses are involved in fatal accidents is disturbing. Those in charge should really take a closer look at our public transports. A magnifying glass would suffice. They should scrutinize the policies by which these buses operate.

 

Where is that course of action?

 

1) If stringent bus rules and regulations need to be implemented, why can't they be?

 

2) If we need to watch bus liners like a hawk, then let us be hawks.

 

3) If it is required that the government send someone to check all the buses everyday, then, check everyday.

 

4) If someone from the government needs to oversee the management of these poorly-maintained buses by staying all day at bus stations, why not?

 

5) If every bus station has to have a government inspector/ mechanic, why not?

 

6) If the government has to screen all the drivers thoroughly, then why don't they?

 

7) If a terribly large amount of money is needed to enforce policies and educate bus drivers, then spend, spend, spend. This country has a lot of money to spend anyway – so much money that billions are unaccounted for.

 

8)If there's a need for me to be distressed while sipping my cup of coffee and reading about Debid Sicam and Tado Jimenez (about how great people and artists they were, how they contributed to this country, or how they were great fathers to their children, or how their lives were shortened, wasted, or how they are now referred to in the past tense), then I will.

 

9) And please stop saying “it’s complicated” or “it is not as easy as we thought” or even mention “emotions.”

 

Don't let this be something that passes through and is forgotten as the months go by until, heaven forbid, it becomes just another noise silenced by time. Everything else, meanwhile, is reduced to the right against self-incrimination: ” Hindi po namin alam. Ewan ko po sa kanila.”

 

This is not even about being poor. It is about our lives intertwined with the public transport called bus. Just, someone, somebody, ANYONE, please do something. (You can make it happen.) — KDM, GMA News
 

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Pier Angeli B. Ang Sen blogs at "The Soapbox Filipina” where this essay originally appeared. We are re-posting it here with permission.