Passenger Tales

I was waiting for a jeepney to bring me to MRT Buendia station when I saw an FX bound for Megamall pass by. I quickly flagged it down even thougn I already had a single journey MRT card for Shaw that I bought earlier on my way to Buendia. I was in Makati for a meeting.

Every commuting experience is different from one another. Sure some are more memorable than others but it’s always a different experience. Take for example my earlier commuting story. It was like short story that had comedy, drama, and even a little bit of song thrown in (no dancing-impossible in the very tight space). So there I was settling in my seat at the middle. A short while later, two passengers (male and female) got in at the back. The radio was playing and both of them sang along softly. I thought, “Weird.” But I just shrugged my shoulders (mentally). To each her/his own. Besides, they just sang a few lines. Anyway, another passenger also got in. When she sat down she paid P10 right away. The driver asked where she would disembark. She replied, “Guadalupe.” The driver advised her that it would be best if she took a jeepney because the fare for the FX was fixed at P25 whether your destination was near or far. She was very obliging and got off the FX. Another passenger got in on the same seat vacated by the previous female passenger. She paid P25 and told the driver that she was getting off at Estrella, this was way nearer to Buendia than Guadalupe was but, what the heck, she was willing to pay. So there we were coasting along nicely until we got to EDSA. I think the driver forgot about the Estrella passenger because when we neared the Rockwell Flyover, he asked us where we were getting off to determine what route he will take. It was determined that the nearest disembarkation point was Robinsons Pioneer. The old man sitting in front told the driver he was getting off at Crossing. The driver told him that it was ok since Crossing was further than Rob P was. Then just to make sure, the driver asked the passengers again if they agreed that Rob P was the nearest drop off point for any of us. Nobody answered, signifying our assent. The old man again piped up, “Crossing ako.” No one paid him any mind.

Just as the driver manuevered the FX so that we entered the Rockwell Flyover, a passenger spoke up that she was getting off at Estrella. We were already about 30 meters inside the flyover. The driver immediately stopped and started backing out of the flyover. Good thing there were very few cars entering the flyover that time and there were no policemen in the vicinity or the driver would have been toast. As he aptly put it, “Di makakabili ng gatas yung pamasahe.” (The fare cannot buy milk). The driver of course was pissed off with the passenger and complained but it was an understandable and he wasn’t violent in his complaints or anything like that. He was trying to avoid traffic at EDSA but if she had spoken earlier, he wouldn’t have entered the flyover. Fortunately, the passenger just stayed silent.

All throughout the travel, the driver was commenting that with the heavy traffic, it was very hard to earn money from driving. Nobody was paying him much attention. The singing passengers interspersed their conversation with some singing when the tune playing from the radio was catchy, e.g. Hotel California. And when there were passengers that got off at Robinsons Pioneer, the old man again repeated to the driver, “Crossing ako.” I don’t know if it was his first time to go to Crossing and was afraid to get lost or he just wanted to remind the driver that he was getting off at Crossing in case the driver decided to veer away from EDSA. When we reached Crossing, traffic was quite heavy and the red light caught the FX a fair distance from the Shaw-EDSA intersection. The driver told the old man that if he wanted to alight, he should do so now because once the light turned green, the nearest stop would be Megamall. The old man got off in a huff because I’m sure he felt it was still some distance away. Good thing he alighted from the FX when he did because when the light turned green, all the vehicles, including the one we were in, were racing to cross the intersection before the light turned red. It would have been impossible to stop someplace before the intersection and it was a longer walk back to Shaw from Megamall.