Filipinos Reluctance To Walk Instead Use Trisikad Or Trikes?

[chris49]

Gina's bike stays warm to red hot in the late afternoon. Despite my instructions and sometimes holding the key, they use the bike to go to the sari sari, 300 metres and a shade less if they short cut. Sometimes buying only one ice=3 pesos.

I'm pretty sure these guys would walk 1-2 km to get to any cockpit arena, any barkada event with drinks, any gambling venue.

Dave. Those who say "I'm not racist" are sometimes the worst offenders. Typically the thinking is, "I'm a westerner, they are Filipino, so there's a difference". There is a cultural difference, and definitely there's a financial gap between most Filipino to foreigner. But the longer you are here the less you will see the difference between 2 cultures. I will see a picture of me with some of my Filipino bike club members. I will sometims get surprised how much different I look to them, generally bigger. But without the photo I will be thinking we are all the same.

This is a tough subject, because if they are a bad behaving Filipino, you will see them differently, that I think is not racism, it's more of a natural reflexive action to be on the defensive.

[Thomas]

it just seems that we notice when Filipinos do not walk and do not mention all the foreigners here and people of our own country who do not walk. For me it is exactly the same, but that's just me I guess.

I know Filipinos who walk too even for recreation (going to the mountains), but what I found remarcable is that some Filipinos spend money at tricycle to get 400 meters, when they have money, although they are very POOR, so they don't afford it...

[Mike J]

I remember my first trip to the Philippines.  The first morning I took about a 2 mile walk after breakfast.  I was amazed at all the honking of horns.  It was not until later that I found out jeepneys would honk to see if you wanted a ride.  Maybe they thought I was hard of hearing because they just kept on honking because I did not know I was supposed to wave them off.   :lol:

[tothevictor]

I've lived all over Asia and this is not a problem that is limited to the Philippines. When I was in Malaysia it used to annoy the hell out of me when the girlfriend would take the car to the eatery at the front gate of the condo complex we were in.  Seriously, to get there was like a 3 minute walk. She used the excuse that the sun would darken her skin. 

 

When I was living in Cambodia I was living in a hotel on the waterfront in Phnom Penh. My office was back behind the main drag, maybe a 20 minute stroll along the boulevard that goes past the Tonle Sap then 100m down the block. All the local staff would take a moto taxi, and many of them had shorter commutes. Me being the crazed white man would walk every single day in both directions. These guys were earning less than $100 a month. They would still spend 50c each way for return taxi rides every day (30% of their income on transport?!?!).

 

Here in the Philippines I tend to walk. When I was helping a guy out in Baguio with his call center operation I was living a good distance away. He was in Tuding and I was in La Trinidad (very close to the border). Anyone who's spent any time in Baguio will know that this is a goodly distance, it was about 120 pesos in a cab. I started walking one way five days a week. Took me 90 minutes and I got the chance to take a stroll through the mountains as the sun rose. Everyone else thought I was cracked in the head.

 

Then something happened. We got the car, and we got the driver. Now it's like... well.. "bring the car around, I really can't be bothered".  In my defense though, where we're living now the market is a good 100m down the road (shirks away into the shadows).

[BluesDude]

I like to take morning walks and I nearly always walk if going short distances. One morning one of the drivers at a trike stand asked me, "Excuse me sir, are you poor?" I told him,"No, I'm not poor, why do you ask?" He said, "We thought you must be poor because you walk too much."

[DavidK]

How would all those drivers make a living if everybody walked? They can't all become cobblers.

[Dave Hounddriver]

How would all those drivers make a living if everybody walked?

When I walk along the boulevard at 6 am there are more Filipinos walking than I can count.  Hundreds and hundreds of them.

 

I realize you are adding a touch of humor but the thought occurred to me long ago that these filipinos are pretty smart.  When someone takes the tricycle they pay 8 pesos, when the hundreds drive to the boulevard and then go for a walk, they pay the parking attendant 5 pesos to park a motorcycle or 10 pesos for a car.

 

Leave it to the filipinos to make more money sitting around watching the vehicles than they would make driving.

[Tukaram (Tim)]

I get a kick out of how often people ask for the jeeepney to stop.  We have these 3 old ladies that live next to each other... we have to stop at all three houses ha ha.   The other day we honestly had one that the jeepney driver even got mad about.  We were stopped, picking up people, and drove less than one full jeepney length and a  woman called for a stop!  :tiphat:

[Thomas]

How would all those drivers make a living if everybody walked? They can't all become cobblers.

And it would be less work for hospitals and pharmacies too. And if they walk, they get better stamina, so they can work harder, so then would employers need to employ less people, so more people would be out of work  :lol:

 

(NOT my thinking of economic results of walking, if anyone thought so, because I claim more walking would be a WINN totaly, because - except when it's REALY needed - the other SHORT transports of people are WASTING of resourses, so the region LOSE money by it...)

[Petey]

I would probably say they dont want to walk for the simple reason there is rarely a sidewalk to walk on, and contending and negotiating the numpties on the road trying to hit you - may as well become part of the traffic issue and not a death statistic.