Keen-eyed Bloggerbels readers will know that when I go to Alabang, I usually take a jeepney. And in the course of many trips to Alabang to eat delicious and inexpensive S&R Pizza (before I went gluten-free), drink coffee at the nicest McDonald’s in the Philippines (the one on Commerce Ave), or visit the public market to buy beef bones for my dogs (THEY LOVE IT!), I noticed something interesting.
Express jeepneys that are fortunate enough to take the South Luzon Expressway to Alabang instead of the horribly congested National Highway are required to have a gate covering their back entrance, one which can be locked shut while on the expressway – unlike most jeepneys, where you just hold on tight and try not to fall out of the back. I eventually realized that each one of these jeepney gates is, as with many things in the Philippines, unique, custom-made, and in many cases quite endearingly improvised. Each one has its own mechanism for locking, too: Sometimes involving hooks, other times wire or even string. All this uniqueness can often be quite bewildering for the passengers near the rear of the jeepney, who are asked with shutting the gate as the jeep nears the expressway.
And so, with the crappy camera that I carry around with me in my man-purse at all times, I have endeavoured to document all the shapes and sizes of jeepney gates that valiantly prevent passengers from bouncing out onto the expressway between the Susana Heights and Filinvest exits.
Aside from the crappiness of my camera, allowances also have to be made for the fact that I took most of these photos from inside vehicles that were rocketing down the highway, bouncing all over the place and shaking uncontrollably while trying to squeeze out every ounce of juice they could muster from their refurbished tractor motors. Oh, and I had to do it while trying to not look like a total weirdo creep – something that’s not very easy to do when you’re taking out a camera and photographing God-knows-what inside a crowded vehicle full of strangers.
