Mask Off: The Price of the Phaseout

It is a growing and continuing issue, that in our Nationalist Neoliberal Economic system has festered into changes that will scar us not just in the days to come, but in the generations that follow. In the wake of our slow industrialization, due to our overprotectionist policies and national corporations benefiting from lack of international competition, we have witnessed core issues that plague our simple workers and laborers. We have faced the terror that our jeepney drivers will be forced to take – A forced modernization program aimed at profiting rather than distributing resources to the common driver. And the killings of labor unions and worker’s rights activists fighting for better economic and social reforms.

In this abhorrent move that the Duterte Administration is forcing, we all stand as we glance at the illogical and unhinged move of the Jeepney Phaseout policy which aims to ‘modernize our jeeps’ but is so elitist and uncompassionate to our poor kababayans who only have a few hundred pesos to spare to eat and feed their family for the whole day. And as the pandemic ravages on following the disastrous and just outright blind policies of our government, the damage to these drivers are even harder. And yet our government forces our drivers to pay millions of pesos, more than ten times the amount they normally get from their earnings, just to buy what the government wants.

Indeed, we need to modernize our jeeps. Indeed, we need to phase out the pollutants that our current jeepneys emit to give a better alternative to our current society and environment. Yet it should not be on the cost of our drivers losing jobs, or the amount of public transport we get. Jeepneys, and other public transportation, are what keeps our workers continuing on with our daily lives, and keep our economy going. Yet if we pull out the vessel that makes our country grow economically, as the great economist John Meynard Keynes would say, in the long run, we are all dead.

In the Nordic countries, public transport is mostly, if not fully subsidized by the government. This promotes economic activity as passengers would spend their money elsewhere, while at the same time, have drivers who have comfortable, and easy lives as they do not bear the brunt of competing with other drivers. However, it seems that our government refuses to adopt this model. The charm of millions of pesos being circulated to private companies, and their willingness to force an outdated economic model which is just obsolete as it’s been proven to not only destabilize a country, but it also makes the poor, even poorer.

It is time for our government to heavily finance and increase the subsidy for the Eco Jeepneys, simply put, 160,000 pesos isn’t enough when a driver is expected to pay 2.1 million in 7 years. A driver only earns 30,000, and it gets cut in half in fuel consumption, and even more than that for engine maintenance.

Yes, the E-Jeepneys can make more income for jeepney drivers due to their low maintenance and fuel cost, but it is still too risky to expect a driver to pay over 2 million just by using it. And this also does not give out the fact that this step doesn’t give the driver a proper choice in choosing his loan. And because of this, it is the role of the government to take responsibility for their policies.

In a Social Democratic Perspective, we value Capitalism and Economics to benefit all people, may that be the rich, the middle class, or the poor. And with the forced phase out of our jeeps by the Duterte Administration, this shows how economically incompetent and Malthusian our government is, further growing the contempt and slandering the name of economics to our country.

We ask our activists, may that be Social Democrats, or other leftists alike, to join the movement in calling for the abolition of the jeepney phaseout program of this current administration, especially at a time of crisis and uncertainty.