I AM amused by the insistence of people to call those minibuses plying some routes in Cebu City as “beeps.” That is actually a face-saving measure because the original plan was to replace old passenger utility jeepney (PUJ) units with new and supposedly modern ones. What they could come up with instead are minibuses.
Which is not surprising because the country where those minibuses were purchased (was it China?) does not actually build jeeps as we Filipinos know it. Jeeps are products of Filipino ingenuity and got stuck because they conform to Filipino practices and situation. Thus at one time the jeep was called king of the road.
Some of those minibuses (some blue and some white) are parked near the Plaza Sugbo at night. Compared with the jeeps, these are behemoths. Meaning that, they could not do what ordinary PUJs do: travel smoothly narrow roads. And these are obviously not cheap to maintain. If these compete with jeepney operations as advertised, we already know who will lose, unless the government intervenes.
There are already 40 units of these minibuses plying some city routes. Now the operator is complaining about the volume of passengers during the holidays. That’s another way of saying the return of investment is slow because of this. But again, this is not surprising because of the way the vehicles are built.
PUJs can get away with lesser passenger volume because the units are smaller than minibuses but these can also profit from larger volume of passengers because these can accommodate more passengers even with their smaller size. The riding experience is not comfortable, but PUJs collect lower fare.
I could just imagine those lumbering minibuses doing a round trip with only one or two or even five passengers. They are even now collecting a minimum fare of P8 as against P7 for PUJs. The choice is obvious for those who want to save. Only those who can splurge will ride them. Besides, PUJs are numerous than those minibuses so that by the time they pass by the PUJs have already picked up the passengers waiting on the road sides.
I expect the operator to ask for an even higher minimum fare in the coming days, especially when it feels the pinch of the maintenance cost. PUJs are unpretentious while those minibuses are airconditioned and have CCTV units and other accessories that will soon break down. The cost of replacement and even repair would be considerable.
As I have already pointed out earlier, the operation of those minibuses can’t replace the operation of passenger jeepneys simply because the operation of PUJs has been time-tested. The government can’t just ram down the throat of passengers those minibuses as replacements of PUJs. Not unless a law is passed making illegal the plying of passenger jeepneys in our roads.
As for the name, just call those units simply as minibuses. The attempt to consider them as “bus-jeep” is simply laughable. They are minibuses, not jeepneys, and naming them “beeps” won’t change that fact. Or are we like the emperor who believed he had some clothes on when he was actually naked?