By Sophia Angeline G. Delantero, UC student
I have always been fascinated with how one jeep can keep people closer even with unfamiliar stories and expressions. I have always been fascinated with how the wheels of one moving metal can bear the weight of the working class and the students who have come to be the so-called hope of tomorrow.
I also catch myself being so amazed at how the mysterious pockets of my bags and faded jeans provide me with silver coins that have the capability to move me from one point to another. I have observed the moving mortals grow disappointed with the unreasonable rise in fares, as if they are programmed to bring out three five-peso coins just to reach their destination.
Inside that moving metal with carpet-like seats has become our safe haven, as someone who is one hospital bill away, trying to make sense of the two silver coins I am holding enough for the fare, less of me.
Tired palms have become a symbolism of comfort in the everyday lives of people in Baguio. We encounter enormous differences in just one route of road yet the only similarity is surviving life at the end of the day.
Between the students with sleepless nights in their backpacks, the vendors smelling of fresh vegetables from the market, and the laborers whose uniforms have long surrendered to dust, everyone is simply trying to arrive somewhere kinder than where they began.
The jeepney has become poetic enough that we have come to romanticize the comfort it brings to us. Holding the coins closely as if they are a message that says they are the only hope to make it through another day.
The familiar “Bayad po,” passed from stranger to stranger, is perhaps the purest form of trust we still have left in a world that has taught us to doubt one another. Somehow, our fares always find their way to the driver’s hand, just as our stories find their place among unknown faces.
Perhaps that is why Baguio has always felt smaller inside a jeepney. The climb along Leonard Wood, the slow crawl through Session Road, the sudden silence as the vehicle reaches the fog-covered roads of Marcos Highway, or the familiar turn toward Aurora Hill, Trancoville, Bakakeng, or Loakan remind us that this city breathes through its passengers. The fog outside the windows may blur the pine trees, but inside, lives become clearer through same exhaustion, exchanged smiles, and conversations that begin with asking whether the seat beside you is still vacant.
This is the quiet tax of moving forward. It is not only measured by the peso added to fares, but by the invisible cost of choosing to continue despite inflation, despite uncertainty, despite waking up each morning unsure whether what we earn will still be enough by sunset. We pay not only to travel distances but to preserve the belief that there is still somewhere worth arriving at.
Maybe that is why I have always been fascinated by the jeepney. It is never just a vehicle. It is a moving confession booth, a waiting room for hope, a classroom without walls, and a reminder that even in a city where the roads constantly climb uphill, people continue to move. Coins may only buy us a seat for a few kilometers, but they also purchase something far more valuable, the courage to keep going, one fare, one route, and one ordinary day at a time.
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