My action-adventure ride
If it’s not a jeep or an FX, it’s usually a bus that I ride to get home.
This one’s for the books.
It’s not uncommon for drivers to get irate especially when it’s the rush hour. And most especially when one vehicle gets cut off by another vehicle.
It just so happened that the vehicles involved in the recent gitgitan were a Marikina-bound jeepney and the SRO G-Liner bus I was on.
This was how it went:
Bus cuts jeepney off to let passengers alight. Bus moves, jeepney cuts bus off and stops in the middle of the road, blocking bus’ path. Jeepney driver gets off and approaches bus driver, who opens his window. Altercation followed (which I didn’t get to understand because I was not near the driver and they sounded like big dogs barking). Jeepney driver throws something small but heavy to bus driver. Bus driver loses his cool and gets off the bus (with his trusty kundoktor). Next thing we see is the bus driver holding what seems to be a small knife. Jeepney driver seeks sanctuary in his vehicle. More yells. Bus driver kicks the side of the jeepney. Jeepney leaves. Bus driver (with just his undershirt on, he took off his polo while yelling and screaming at jeepney driver) gets back and drives.
But no, the story does not end there.
Three stops away (and a couple hundred meters before my stop), someone throws some sort of rock or a piece of adobe at the side of the bus. Bus driver and kundoktor (and some passengers) recognize the culprits as the jeepney driver and some companions (bilis umikot a). Someone from the jeepney driver’s troupe carried a knife longer than that of the bus driver’s. Bus driver (atapang atao) alights once more to face the adversaries. Eventually a chase around the jeepney ensued. Imagine Trip to Jerusalem on a faster scale. Went on for more than five minutes. Invectives and curses were exchanged, and the ruckus ended when there were no more things to throw at each other (and probably because they’ve noticed the irritated passengers… at least they got concerned). Bus drove to the next stop and I went home.
Interestingly, I knew I saw a traffic enforcer drive by during Part II of the altercation. Only I think he just looked and moved on (natakot?).
As for me, I stayed the whole time it happened, for the following reasons:
One, I wanted to see what happened next.
Two, I paid for my fare already. Sayang naman.
And three, well, the bus had a TV… which was showing Bakekang… it’s the only time that my SO and I become jologs. Because there was no other choice. And now, it’s becoming a nightly habit.
You just have to be jologs sometimes…
