‘Sir, pa-cancel po’
In Metro Manila, movement is governed by delay. Last week, amid the December rush, I crossed the city by motorcycle, not by preference, having survived two motorcycle accidents, but because other options were either unavailable or inefficient. This mode of transport has become the most workable way to move through a system defined by waiting. Even then, access is uncertain. At peak hours, securing a ride often took close to an hour.
One evening, on the way to dinner, my driver explained why he accepted my booking. I had added a P50 tip, now a common tactic during rush hour. For him, it mattered. It replaced a P100 incentive tied to maintaining a so-called clean track record, which penalizes cancellations.
Earlier that day, he had been matched with a passenger several kilometers away. He asked politely if the passenger could cancel instead, knowing that canceling himself would cost him the incentive. The passenger refused. In rush hour, a booking is not expendable. It is time and fuel. It is the difference between going home to rest, finishing the day’s chores, and returning to children who have been waiting.
The situation is framed as a standoff between driver and passenger, as if one must lose for the other to move. But that is not where responsibility lies. This is where frustration is often misdirected. We are placed in opposition by design. Passengers absorb delays. Drivers absorb penalties. The intermediary absorbs profit. What appears to be a personal dispute is, in reality, a structural one.
Given the fees charged and the prices imposed, efficiency should be the baseline. Instead, inefficiency is normalized and pushed downward as a daily cost borne by commuters and workers alike. The reward for navigating this system is insultingly small. One hundred pesos is the price placed on compliance in a labor arrangement that offers no benefits, no security, and no protection.
This is the gig economy without its euphemisms. It promises convenience, but delivers it unevenly, favoring those with surplus time and money while extracting value from a transport crisis carried by an overworked population.
This situation did not arise on its own, and it will not resolve itself. It demands state action. A functional transport system requires coordination, regulation, and sustained public investment, not passive tolerance of concentration and market dominance. Where competition is thin and accountability weaker still, inefficiency hardens into routine. While neighboring countries have invested in mass transit, walkable cities, and integrated planning, Metro Manila has normalized congestion and outsourced movement to profit-driven arrangements.
Against this backdrop, official responses drift toward diversion. Calls to curb mall sales during the holiday rush treat congestion as a problem of consumer behavior rather than infrastructure and planning. This is not a solution. It is narrative management. It shifts attention away from state responsibility and delays reform.
So what should passengers do when a driver asks them to cancel, and they are desperate to get home? It helps to remember that this request is not personal, but structural. Both the passenger and driver are navigating the same transport failure. While mass transit remains inadequate and motorcycles are still the most practical option, negotiation sometimes becomes the only workable response. Offering an additional P20 or P30 to wait can make the trip viable, as drivers themselves often suggest. If possible, give it in cash. Empathy matters, but it is no substitute for policy.
We cannot be expected to manage systemic failure through individual kindness alone. We live inside systems that are neither fair nor humane, and we negotiate their limits every day. This should not be permanent. Alongside demands for accountability in corruption and flood control, we must insist on a transport system that treats movement as a public good, not a privilege rationed by profit. Passengers and drivers are not enemies. The real conflict lies elsewhere, and it is long overdue for confrontation.
Passengers and drivers must refuse to be set against each other. The demand is simple and nonnegotiable: investment in mass transit, enforcement of real competition, and accountability for regulators who allow monopoly to flourish. Movement is not a luxury. It is a right, and it must be governed as such.
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Rex Menard Lim Cervales, 26, is a masters student at Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand, whose research and reflections explore the intersections of health and society.
