It can be a challenge to read the jeepney route details amid all the decoration
PHOTOGRAPH: SEATOPS/ALAMY
To Manilenos and other city-dwellers in the Philippines, they are the cheapest means of travel: hop-on hop-off buses with a minimum fare of nine pesos (15p). To visitors, jeepneys are a colourful symbol of Filipino spirit and ingenuity: custom-welded and painted in eye-catching designs. When sent out into the gridlock of Manila’s streets, jeepneys are a test of another national virtue, ‘bahala na’ (patience in the face of the unchangeable). Their days, however, may be numbered.
1 US forces brought Jeeps to the Philippines in 1944 in their campaign against the Japanese. Many were left behind after WWII, becoming the first jeepneys. The word likely combines ‘Jeep’ and ‘jitney’ (US slang for ‘shared cab’).
2 As well as extending the back to fit more passengers, jeepney owners got creative with paint jobs and borloloys (ornaments). The buses were already a national icon by 1964, when one was exhibited at the New York World’s Fair.
3 Jeepney art freely mixes genres: religion, action films and more. One bus might sport images of Christ and a fighter jet. Borloloys on the bonnet include horse figurines, and Mercedes emblems that bear no relation to who built the chassis.