March is Women’s Month in the Philippines. In tune with this, a 5 kilometer fun run that was organized by the General Trias Municipal Government together with the JCI General Trias Katipunan and Nagkakaisang Kababaihan ng Heneral Trias was held last Sunday (March 18). The fun run that was aptly named “Run For Your Rights” was for the promotion of women’s rights.
It started at Pasong Kawayan II and finished at General Trias Cultural & Convention Center. It took us about 2 hours to finish the run (other runners “careered” kinarir, a Filipino slang> it and finished the run in less than an hour).
Students and staff of Lyceum of the Philippines University – Cavite joined the run through the NSTP 2 class. It was fun. It was my first time to join a fun run and I enjoyed it. Too bad I wasn’t able to have someone take a photo of me while running. I had a couple of snapshots though.
I commute daily going to work (my wife drives me to work when I’m running late). I noticed (well, it’s an OBVIOUS thing) that some of jeepneys plying Cavite’s roads are colorum. These are illegally operating public utility vehicles, either out of line or a vehicle registered in the Land Transportation Office for PRIVATE use (some even has a “NOT FOR HIRE” sticker on the sides of the jeepney.
What are the benefits of riding in a duly registered public utility jeep (PUJ)? First, your trip will be an uninterrupted one if in case there are operations apprehending colorum jeeps.
Just the other day, I was with my co-faculty when the driver returned our fare and asked us to transfer to another jeepney and because there was a checkpoint for colorum vehicles manned by police and LTO officers.
And second, in case of a mishap you will be covered by the insurance for passengers. The LTFRB requires all operators to have their PUJs to have this. Examples are Philippine Accident Managers Inc. or PAMI and UniTrans.
There was an operation against colorum jeepneys in Cavite I saw, but it was way back in May 2006. I hope the local authorities (and National Government) do something about this. I feel pity for the operators who pays all the requirement to operate their PUJ legally while the illegal ones ply the streets freely. Another thing I noticed is that on “good” days, only 4 out of 10 PUJs I see are colorum, but on “bad” days, it’s around 6 out of 10. Most of the jeepneys in Tagaytay/Mendez-Indang terminal in front of the Indang Police Station and the Trece/Dasma-Indang terminal in front of the Indang Municipal are mostly colorum (according my observation and from a driver I talked to).
This is an example of a “legit” PUJ:
Let us help support the operators and drivers of legal PUJs by not riding the illegal ones.
