OVER THE years, we have already learned that what walks like a duck and talks like a duck is not necessarily a duck.
As a matter of fact, in this time of advanced robotics, what walks like a human and talks like a human is not necessarily a human.
Sad to say, there is another saying that if a lie is told so many times over and over again, it might even begin to sound like the truth. For so many times, I tried looking at the so-called “modern jeepney” for so many times, hoping that it could eventually look like the original jeepney as I know it, perhaps in a way hoping that it could turn into a golden carriage just like the giant squash in the fairy tale story of Cinderella.
No matter how much I tried to look, the so-called “modern jeepney” always looked like a “minibus” to me, and nothing else.
I wonder who it is that concocted this lie and somehow succeeded in convincing the entire nation that it is a “modern jeepney” and not a “minibus”?
It is as if someone has convinced us that the earth is flat and not round, or that the moon is square, and not round.
Whoever it is, I hope that some time in the future, this deception could be unmasked, like the fairy tale that told of an emperor who turned out to be naked, and was without the so-called “new clothes”.
Pardon me for saying so, but I really believe that the bottom-line issue here should be vehicle emissions, or in other words the emissions coming out of any vehicle in general, and all jeepneys in particular.
In many countries, the criterion for approving or disapproving vehicle registration is passing or not passing emissions tests. In other words, vehicles could be approved for registration for as long as they pass emission tests, not matter how old they are.
Rather than force the owners of old jeepneys to buy the new “minibuses”, why not help them to comply with the emission standards? That way, the burden of doing work would pass on to the government, and not to the people.
In the final analysis, the objective is to have cleaner air, and to have better transport by having more transport vehicles.
I bet you, some of those “minibuses” may not even pass emission tests./PN
