BEEP BEEP! There’s a new GIRL IN TOWN

“ Modernization they said! It will be good they said! It’s for everyone theysaid! Maybe we got lost in translation I said... Imagine waking up not worryingabout your uniform smelling like burnt smoke, imagine going to school feelingfresh, imagine the commuter life that’s as easy as one, two, three.

Have you guys heard about this new girl in town, apparently everyone’sbeen saying that she’s an exact copy of that girl “Jeepney” but better in everysingle way possible.

Well for starters, she reduces air pollution and treats the passengers to abusiness-class experience. I even heard she has air-conditioning. She also reducesthe amount has to offer. It is as if these pills were the gateway to a realm full of happiness. However, the good things didn’t end there.

Apparently the better use of drugs is not to use them but rather sell them. A drug pusher, that’s what they called me. Who cares what everyone thinks right? Nobody confronted me, nobody cared. I made a living out of selling drugs to those who crave it. It became a source of good money.

I know! I know! I became a pusher, but a killer? I wasn’t the one who shot my friend. HE WAS MY FRIEND. It was not my fault we got busted when he was buying drugs from me.

I tried to run away from it, I really did. I ran and ran and ran hundreds of miles but no matter how far I ran from the life of drugs, it always caught me like a shadow that I can’t get rid of. Gunshots, screams, lights. One night turned my life completely upside down. I hid behind the couch as every single police in the whole Philippines entered my apartment.

“Hands behind your back! Feet to the ground!” I im- mediately knew that this was the end of me. After surviving with the help of pushing, the consequences have finally caught up to me. Where are the cameras? When will the director yell cut? When will this movie end? of accidents due to her being better because she has a betterstandard than our jeepney right now. So I guess she’s gonna be the new populargirl huh...

As I was running on the street. I felt this burning pain on my chest. Soon I realized it was the final blow to my dying body. I really thought drugs would have killed me first, but here I am lying in a pool of blood.

It was a clear sky, and for the first time there were no stars to be found. A teardrop fell on my cheeks. Will people remember me for me? Or will they remember me as this “patapon” boy that tragically died in a drug buy bust?

Only if someone saved me from this life. Only if the super hero of my life came to rescue me from this death. Is this death a death of a hero? Of a villain? Is this a tragedy? Or a statistic?

Will everyone get to know my name? Or will they hear a drug addict instead of Jacob? An innocent looking item got a hold of my life and nobody seemed to care enough to even try to save me. If only someone cared enough.

God, are you there? Or is the song real? Natutulog ka ba? Can you help me? Pls?

I’ve been begging my entire life for someone just to look at me. Is anybody out there? Am I waving through a glass window? Am I screaming inside a car? Can no one hear me? Is the window tinted?

No one cared for me, all my life everybody predicted what would happen to me and turns out they were right. A drug junkie addict who’s never really showed any potential in becoming someone in life. But hey, it’s over now.

Every suffering, every pill, every person that I’ve hurt does not matter anymore. Everyone sees me now... Right here lying on the concrete with dogs smelling my body from left and right.

Wait, guys? Did you see this? That jeepney girl is getting kicked out becausethe better version of her is here. Look! It says, traditional jeepney drivers haveonly until June 30, 2023 to drive their jeepneys around the country, should theyfail to join or form their own cooperative.

It’s unfair, right?

Jeepneys have been a staple in everyone’s life as it is themost convenient and budget-friendly mode of transportation, especially forstudents and employees who doesn’t have a private airplane bringing themwherever they go.

It’s un- fair, not only to us but especially to the jeepney drivers. We can’tdeny that these changes are in fact for the better but really? Modernization at thecost of a driver’s livelihood.

I imagine that it would take over a million lifetimes for an ordinary jeepneydriver to cover the cost of the 2 million pesos to 2.8 million pesos for amodernized jeepney.

I know for a fact that everyone desires modernization so desperately as it isevident in fashion, social media, and politics, and this is just a really

“well” thoughtout decision by a government who’s desperate for artificial modernization.

It is not a question of whether the people desire modernization or not butrather a question of “is this modernization for the greater good of the publicmasses? of the jeepney drivers? Or for the benefit of the chosen few in power andtheir business associates?”

Is the government too out of touch? Too out of touch to even realize thatthe country has so much more problems that need immediate action from the government?

Hey, maybe we are the ones out of touch. Maybe Abraham Lincoln waslying when he said that “the government of the people, by the people, for thepeople” because it feels like it isn’t for the people anymore.

We should remember that modernization is not always the solution,especially when it sacrifices the welfare of the people it aims to serve. Who knewthat a modernized jeepney could make the life of an ordinary jeepney driver aliving hell. Maybe it’s time for those “in power” to focus on lending a helping hand toits citizens rather than imposing measures that will further burden them.