IN one scene of the movie “Field of Dreams,” farmer Ray Kinsella, the character played by a young Kevin Costner, was walking through his cornfield when he heard a voice that repeatedly said, “If you build it, they will come.” He also had visions of a baseball diamond in his field. His father John was a baseball fan.
The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) and the Land Transportation Office (LTO) have suggested to the Cebu City Government to open jeepney routes in mountain villages for safe transport. The intention is to ease out motorcycles-for-hire as the primary means of transport in those areas.
That, though, is better said than done. There are a number of reasons why people in the mountain villages ride on motorcycles-for-hire or the habal-habal even if government officials insist these endanger the lives of passengers. Opening the routes to jeepneys is only one of the ways to change the transport setup in the mountain villages.
The main problem in the mountain villages is, of course, infrastructure. Most of the routes there are difficult to traverse for four-wheel vehicles, thus even if these are opened to passenger jeepneys no investor would take the risk. There are passenger jeepneys in some routes but these are vehicles that have seen better days in the lowlands. Owners allow their use there because, like the motorcycles, the financial risk is less.
The cart must therefore be placed behind the horse and not before it. Meaning that before opening the mountain routes to jeepneys, those routes must be built and made passable to four-wheel vehicles. That was what happened when the Cebu Transcentral Highway was built. But even with the highway, only private vehicles and V-hires use it to move people and cargo.
But the logic is good. Instead of forcing a stop to the operation of the habal-habal, having passenger jeepneys compete with it is the better option. Except that the idea needs further study and better roads need to be built. To quote the voice in the movie “Field of Dreams,” “If you build it, they will come.”