I sit ugly, like a duck waiting to exhale, in a crowded jeepney on the way to somewhere that seems like nowhere on a morning like this. The old car is at the shop undergoing check-up after wading (Inay, sinking) through floods the week past.
I go public transport. I kid myself I’m stuck here in Dante Alighieri’s first circle of hell because I want to observe the human condition in the city of my dreams of long ago.
I’m kidding myself to death. I go through a nightmare so early in the morning with my eyes wide awake.
I look closely at the women in the jeepney with me. The 20-something girl who just boarded the jeep in front of Santo Domingo church along Quezon Avenue is all spruced up.
She is on her way to work, in a black skirt, cream blouse, and black stockings. Her complete get-up this morning must cost her more than her daily wage of roughly 650 pesos, contractual, less tax.
She quickly puts out her mobile phone and fiddles with it as soon as she settles on a sunken portion of the 10-person capacity seater. She must be texting her boyfriend or mother to assure him or her that she has gotten a ride at last.
Like me, it must have taken her at least 45 minutes to flag a fleeting jeep, taxi or bus. I fear for her cellphone, which looks expensive, as the area between Araneta Avenue and Welcome Rotunda is notorious for hold uppers boarding jeepneys, posing as regular passengers. Not content with texting, she dials her boyfriend’s number, settling an issue.
“Basta, promise me you’ll be faithful, ha,” she swears.
Beside Office Girl is a working mother who must be in her 50s. From her uniform, a mixture of light blue and cream, she must be a clerk or something at a government office downtown. Perhaps, a harassed public school teacher.
She carries a black shoulder bag, a green eco bag that contains her lunch and some folders.
She also puts out her mobile, calls someone at home to give instructions. She speaks of putting out frozen chicken wings from the refrigerator as the family’s lunch. She is one woman too many.
She tells the person on the other line to be careful when taking a cab, or crossing the street, or even hanging out at some coffee shop in Quezon City or anywhere in this city of flitting jeepneys and faded dreams. Girls can get robbed and raped at the same time in cafes these days. Or so says the news on TV.
As the jeepney bumps out the corner of España and Algeciras Street, past the railroad tracks, and after inhaling a lifetime supply of toxic fumes, I am reminded of my own daughter.
She’s graduating from a university in summer, ready to join the workforce, just like Office Girl on her mobile phone and Government Clerk with the green eco bag of luncheon meat.
I wonder how Sheltered Daughter will blend in this milieu, this daily grind of prepping up, walking past the corner, all the way to the main road by her lonesome, and fighting tooth and nail to catch a seat in a bus, taxi, FX, jeepney or train with the very real threat of sitting next to a thief, or a hold upper. As of the last count, 12 million Filipinos are jobless, many of them women.
The city of over 14 million is too crowded with office workers, factory workers, beggars, squatters, jeepneys and jeepney drivers, lovers, and other strangers looking for jobs, their futures or their places under the Manila sun. They’re all raring to take my seat on this crowded jeepney as soon as I alight, somewhere, nowhere.
After sitting here for what looks like a lifetime as vehicles are stalled by heavy traffic, I realize it is time we stopped romanticizing jeepneys.
Preserving them is fine, but I can’t afford to romanticize jeepneys when I see them farting thick smoke into our streets and straight to our lungs. Those with engines that are older than the potholes of our towns and cities must definitely be removed from our streets.
Designers of modern jeepneys, in their desire for modernization, should also consider comfort and convenience of passengers going in and out of the vehicle. Time to put an end to all that bending and tiptoeing as we alight or getting in or out of jeepneys.
The practice makes Filipinos perpetually in a state of subservience.
Bending one’s knees, almost like carabaos genuflecting in Pulilan, Bulacan, lowering our heads, inching our way ever so carefully, full of respect and compliance, so as not to step on the toes of other passengers, all the more reminds us we are a people colonized and ruled over.
I once overheard daughter, Lola Cinderella, and her best friend, Rowena, talking on their mobiles the other day. Talk centered on how hard it was lowering your head as you rode crowded jeepneys and how exasperating travel time in the city has been.
“I feel spent just riding jeepneys to school,” she said.
Best Friends think finding a job somewhere, in Singapore, Portugal, Spain, Poland or any foreign land where public transport systems work and security a tad safer for women, may just be a better idea.
As the jeep halts and sputters on the corner of España and Maceda Street, a woman in her early 30s comes in. She’s quite a sight to behold on this early morning.
Fair complexion. Shoulder-length hair. Nice purple mini-skirt. Smells of Jo Malone. A thing of beauty. Lasts forever.
I wonder why she’s in a jeepney like the rest of us when she should be on some limousine like Pretty Woman.
Like the Office Girl earlier, she also fiddles with her mobile, an expensive iPhone 12, the one with the highest degree of radiation, according to a Facebook post.
I keep an eye on her branded bag, which is slightly opened. Peeping from one of its corners is a leftover bar of chocolate, certainly not by Serg’s or Chocnut. Her snack for the day. It’s a Snicker.
The sight of that piece of chocolate amused me I had to muffle a smile. It reminded me of how chocolate could be many things to many people. It could be an upper, a happy pill. I also realized how it could create and heighten romance and complicate it, too.
At 30, my old friend, Dante Rivero, my high-school jeep mate, was already married, and with a kid. Too good-looking for a driving school instructor, he once gifted his girlfriend, Adriana, with a bag of imported chocolate.
He had given her the original big bag after stashing away some of the chocolate in a jar at home for his wife and child.
Adriana thanked Dante for his gift of sweet. After an extended kiss and a tight hug, she rushed to catch a jeep bound for her work downtown in the city.
Still half-asleep and drowsy from last night’s tryst, Adriana got off the jeep as soon as she saw the familiar landmark of her office location.
In haste, she forgot all about the half-full bag of chocolate. It was left lying in a corner of the jeep for all the world to catch.
The jeepney plowed on amidst the usual city traffic, halting occasionally to let in passengers. Past familiar landmarks.
Row upon row of rundown apartments that now housed motor shops, junk stores, beauty parlors, low-brow spas, and carinderias.
They all connived to create what looked like a ghetto in what used to be the area where my boarding house as a university student stood.
As soon as the jeepney crossed the railroad between Antipolo and Algeciras streets, along came in Almira, a smartly dressed junior executive type.
She squeezed herself into the crowded passenger vehicle, eventually finding a spot at the far end of the jeep close to the driver’s seat.
Once settled, she tied her shoulder-length hair into a neat bun and
started texting.
As the jeepney cruised along España Boulevard, Almira noticed the brown paper bag left lying in a deep crevice at the far end of the jeepney.
She was initially afraid, hesitant to touch it, fearing it might be a bomb or worse, human waste. Squatters in the area used to dump their wastes on the rooftops of passing PNR trains, a story she picked up from her boyfriend, who was raised there.
Sensing that it seemed not heavy, she decided to peer through it. Gingerly. Like she was holding her breath.
What a surprise, she told herself, breaking into a chuckle. Something sweet from heaven.
Almira picked up the brown paper bag, placed it on her lap beside her bag and opened it slowly.
There she saw the half-full bag of chocolate bars, which she immediately recognized. The bag of chocolate even had a red loving card on it, duly signed by a lover most probably.
After a short while, she got off the jeepney at her usual stop along Lerma. She walked straight to her office, placed the brown paper bag on a side table, and proceeded with the order of the day. Every now and then, she couldn’t get her mind off the brown paper bag of chocolate bars.
Her mobile rings. She wipes off beads of sweat on her forehead. It’s Dante Rivero. After a few perfunctory greetings, Almira asks him, “What did you do with the bag of imported chocolate I gave you?”
Quick on the draw, without missing a beat, Dante says it’s at home, for the wife and child, who like them so.
“They might want more of those, I still got some,” she shot back, wiping away more sweat from her neck down.
Dante thanks her. They kiss on the phone. See you later. End of conversation.
Dante was a bit dumbfounded by Almira’s query. It was the first time this lover of his of a few months only displayed such an attitude.
He has had flings and affairs left, right, and center even while he was single. He was never really attached to any one of them. It was always touch and go.
“I am probably like my father,” he used to tell me on our jeepney rides between home and school back then.
Dante’s father was a jeepney driver who had many women falling at his feet. The old man was too handsome even during his mature years. He was also such a flirt, a great storyteller.
When he left his family for another woman, Dante was more devastated than his mother. He swore never to be like his father. He would even write it down as part of his New Year’s resolutions.
But, look what happened.
Trying to lower her eyebrows and contain herself, Almira booked a rider, who arrived in no time.
She handed him the package of brown paper bag of chocolate candy. She made sure the rider would deliver the gift to just one person.
Amalia was happily surprised when a motorcycle rider halted by her doorstep looking for her as she stepped out to water her plants lining the garage of her apartment. She never expected any delivery that afternoon.
Her little daughter, Lorela, stood by the gate in anticipation. She shushes her not to be too excited.
Amalia checked and double-checked with the rider if the package was truly intended for her. The rider said yes after a throaty grunt.
“I was given specific instruction to hand it to you and only you po,” he said.
Amalia noted that the package came from a stranger, Miss Almira Fuentes. She hadn’t heard that name before.
“Who could she be, and why has she sent me this package?” she thought to herself.
She opened the brown paper bag gingerly, anticipating good news only.
She noticed the red card attached to the half-full bag of chocolate bars. She easily recognized that broken, cursive handwriting.
She also noted that the bars were the same chocolate bars stored in a jar on their dining table.
Her heart pounding, her mind flitting, she placed the brown paper bag beside the jar on the dining table and waited for dear old Dante to come home.
At the back of her mind, she thought out loud: “The card was meant for Adriana, but who is Almira and why does she know where we live? And why has she sent me this?”
Hearing her one-woman show of force, her pet dog, Nena, growled.
Dante Rivero sure had a valid explanation for all this as soon as he got off the jeepney that would take him home after a long and winding road. And just like me, tired, weary and clueless as an ugly, unfaithful duckling waiting to exhale in a crowded jeepney on the way to somewhere that seems like nowhere.
