Miscalculated

At first opportunity, the leftist groups behind the projected one-week jeepney strike called off the action on the second day. They should have waved large white flags.

If you have one last bullet in the chamber and you pull the trigger, your ability to intimidate evaporates. A widespread wildcat transport strike was the militants’ last bullet in the chamber. They pulled the trigger and revealed a dud. They had no other option but to try and save some face as they scurried from the battlefield.

What were these militant groups thinking?

It is challenge enough to call for a one-day strike. The last few instances when such strikes were called saw that most drivers would rather ply their routes and earn their day’s meal. The more moderate groups rarely cooperated with the radicals, suspecting their political motives and tactical means.

Today, the drivers are even more divided. A large segment had already formed cooperatives, took out loans and converted to modern jeepney versions. That segment will not participate in a strike that seeks to reverse the transition and that exposes them to cancellation of their franchises.

On the first day of the projected transport strike, only four or five jeepney routes in Metro Manila were palpably affected. Local governments acted quickly in providing emergency transport to avert commuters being stranded. Some schools cancelled classes to safeguard their students.

Nevertheless, Piston and Manibela (along with their other leftist allies Bayan Muna, Gabriela and ACT) declared the strike to be “95 percent” effective. They are speaking from another universe. They lie in our faces: most jeepneys were dutifully plying their routes. Our commuters might be harried; but they are not blind.

A few decades ago, a jeepney strike would have been a politically potent thing. This was when most commuters relied on these heavily politicized rolling relics to move around. This is no longer the case. The bulk of our commuters use a wide variety of transport options: commuter trains, vans, motorcycle taxis, TNVS and, yes, private vehicles.

A few decades ago, jeepney drivers could hold commuters hostage and win their political demands by calling for a strike. This no longer pertains. Our transport ecosystem might seem as chaotic as before; but its composition has changed. Only the leftist bosses seem to have missed that.

On the second day of the projected week-long strike action, the number of striking drivers became even more negligible. Government was not budging – although, consistent with the President’s leadership style, was not being confrontational either. The policy stays. The President was not about to issue any order to reverse the policy on transport modernization.

The communists were losing the day. Badly.

When a government representative met with the leaders of the fizzled strike action and promised to “study” the matter (as is routine with any policy program in progress), the strikers quickly called off the action. Either that or they lose more face.

The strike action enjoyed no public support. That forced the leftist bosses into seriously contorted public utterance. They were not against modernization, they claim. They just did not want the phaseout of “traditional” jeepneys. But how else does modernization happen without phasing out the rolling relics?

Vice President Sara Duterte, concurrently Education Secretary, criticized the strike action as a distraction from our efforts to close the pandemic-induced learning gap plaguing our students. Mincing no words, true to her DNA, she described the strike action as selfish and communist-inspired.

Had the striking groups persisted, the Vice President’s verbal assault on them would surely escalate. There was no way they could score against Sara Duterte’s blunt verbal assault.

This will be the last time militant jeepney drivers will ever challenge government transport policy. Like their rolling relics, drivers and operators of this mode of transport are a dying breed. The “boundary system” is archaic. They can no longer determine the rules of the game and, often, the rules of the road.

The strike called for this week was the last gasp of a dying “industry.” The ranks of autonomous drivers and operators are thinning. There are definite standards of efficiency that jeepney lovers cannot defy for too long. The Luddite argument that jobs will be lost if we make things rational no longer cuts it.

The leftist bosses who imagined this strike seriously miscalculated. A week-long strike was too ambitious. They yearned to score political points by forcing government to reverse policy in the face of a crippling strike. It would have underscored the continuing potency of the communist mass organizations. All the calculations were based on wishful thinking.

There is no constituency for maintaining an urban transport system anchored on smoke-belching jeepneys. The traditional design violates all safety and efficiency measures. The system where independent drivers decide on their own if and when they ply their routes creates uncertainty in our transport. The very decision to call for a wildcat strike underscores this.

The matter is now settled. The drivers and operators lost this final confrontation. Government won this handily. The status quo will not be maintained.

Government must now press its advantage. The holdouts for inefficiency have been routed. The militant transport groups must not be allowed to hold commuters hostage once more.

Those who participated in this illegal strike must not be left unpunished. Franchises must be revoked. This will hasten modernization and reinforce government’s credibility.

Franchises, after all, are privileges extended by the state. They may be withdrawn at the slightest excuse.