JEEPNEYS AND REVOLUTIONS

Jeepneys, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, best represent the Filipinos’ on-the-spot survival instincts conditioned by centuries of desperate situations. Lest we forget, the “people” in People Power are the millions who face the violence of hunger every day, those who barely get the minimum wage. They are the “bakya” crowd, the “masa,” the “ochlos” in the Gospel of Mark. The late Luis Beltran, popular radio political commentator, called them “bubwit.” These are the millions who are underpaid, who are overworked, and who will never get a bank loan approved for a small house, a second-hand car, and yes, a 1.6 million electric jeepney!

These are the masses who patronize the 600,000+ drivers who drive over 200,000 jeepneys throughout the country every single day. Yet, these are the masses who overthrew Marcos and “Erap.” According to Teodoro Agoncillo, Renato Constantino, and Reynaldo Ileto, the “Revolt of the Masses” that overthrew Spain was exactly that—a revolt of the masses!

“No uprising fails. Each one is a step in the right direction.” Ileto memorializes this famous saying of peasant leader Salud Algabre in his Pasyon and Revolution. Algabre was one of the leaders of the anti-American Sakdal uprising in 1935. For me, what Salud Algabre ultimately does with that short yet profound statement is memorialize all those unnamed legions of freedom fighters that have been victimized by the violence of institutionalized forgetting. These include the indigenous communities of Igorots and Lumads, forcibly driven out of their ancestral domain, in the name of development, that now find themselves displaced in their own homeland. These include rural “messiahs,” like Hermano Pule and Macario Sakay, who led anti-colonial movements against Spain and America yet are marked as bandits and thieves in Filipino and American history books. (Incidentally, if you know your Greek, the “lestes”—rebels or freedom fighters—crucified with Jesus are called bandits and thieves in the English translations.)

And these would include jeepney riders—farmers, fisher-folk, students, women, those whose only hope is God—collectively struggling to dismantle structures of exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and systemic violence in all its forms.

Since the late 40s, jeepneys have been integral to the lives of many Filipinos who are not full participants in the economic system. Albert Ravenholt’s case study notes that jeepneys “relate so intimately to the daily life of Filipinos throughout the archipelago” yet government and financial institutions do not provide support of any kind to their manufacture and/or sale. Jeepneys are the masses’ response to the ravages of war.  They are the most concrete expressions of a people's capacity to beat swords into plowshares. Unfortunately, the Philippine Government has basically left public mass transportation systems in the hands of the private sector. Jeepneys, tricycles, pedicabs are the masses’ response to the government’s impotence and indifference.

Why is it that there’s practically no traffic in Metro Manila during Holy Week? Because public roads are free of private vehicles that cause all the traffic in the Metropolis. Heck, 80-90% of public roads are used by private vehicles, most of which have one passenger. Why was there heavy traffic during the October 16-17 Nationwide Strike against the jeepney phaseout? Again, because jeepneys do not cause traffic. Private vehicles do. And everyone in the LTO, DOTC, and LTFRB know this as true.

Raveholt continues, without establishment support, manufacturers, which are usually family operations, work on the kumpadre/kumadre system and seal deals with a handshake and palabra de honor. Young people who learn how to drive on jeepneys see jeepney driving as the best option for livelihood, given their very limited opportunities to find work elsewhere. With no credit schemes available from banks, these young Filipinos have no choice but to approach private money lenders who eventually, because of exorbitant interest rates, get to own the jeepneys themselves. Many work as OFWs and, after saving enough, come home to get their own jeepneys.

Ravenholt notes: “Jeepney drivers are so influential as molders of public opinion that successive attempts seeking to bar them from Manila’s main streets have been thwarted…In the twenty years or so that I have been involved in social activism in the Philippines, I have observed that the only thing that can paralyze the country’s business and government infrastructure, literally bringing everything to a halt is a jeepney strike.” 

No. Actually, there are two: a jeepney strike and a “People Power” uprising from the masses that ride jeepneys.

No other public vehicle is better equipped to navigate the Philippines’ narrow and dimly lit streets at night. No other person is better equipped to drive a jeepney at night than a Filipino. The people’s revolt that overthrew the US-supported Marcos dictatorship in 1986 began and ended at night. I was there, with about two million other folks, most of whom ride jeepneys.  Clifford Geertz reminds us: “Some of the greatest revolutions occur in the dark.”

#NoToJeepneyPhaseout

The Parable of the Talents

A rich man entrusts his property to three of his slaves. To one he gives five talents; to the second, two; to the third, one. The one with five traded with them and earns five more. The one with two, doing the same, earns two more. The third, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.

After a long time, the master returns and settles accounts with them. The first and second slaves are found trustworthy and put in charge of more things and invited to enter into the joy of their master. The third who returns the one talent he received is thrown out into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Why?

Because he was not willing to become a party to the ways of his master who was harsh, reaping where he did not sow, and gathering where he did not scatter seed. Moreover, his master expected 100% returns on his property which the other two slaves did.

Lest we forget, a talent is 15 years' wages. At minimum rates, in Philippine pesos that is about 3 million pesos. The first got 15 million and earned 15 million. The second, 6 million and earned 6 million. 

The third slave was brave enough to say no to a system that was built on profit, greed, and violence. And he was punished for doing so.

My friends, this parable is not about one's talents in singing, dancing, leading Bible Studies, teaching Sunday School, and other "talents." It has never been about these.

His parables got Jesus executed.

The Prodigal Son

There was a man with two sons.

He was rich. He had property. He had land. He had slaves. He had two sons. The younger asks for his inheritance and squanders it. He goes back home and is welcomed back by his father. With a feast, a robe, sandals, and a ring. The older is angry, feels slighted, and left out so the father reminds him that “you are always with me and all is mine is yours.” 

In the end, everybody lives happily ever after. Father and sons. Still propertied. Still landed. Still slaveholders. Still rich.

My friends, we should stop identifying rich fathers, rich landowners, and rich slaveholders with God. Parables of Jesus were subversive speech. They indicted the status quo. They challenged Pax Romana.

They were the reasons Jesus was executed.

The Centurion and his Beloved

Palestine had been under Roman Occupation for almost a century during the time of Jesus. With the death of Herod the Great, direct control was put in effect. Thus, a Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, run Judea by the time of Jesus’s ministry.

Historians tell us that most Jews hated the Romans. They hated Roman Centurions more. And the feeling was mutual. Hatred for centurions was especially pronounced because the centurion, not the emperor nor the Roman senators, served as the face of the empire for majority of the occupied peoples. In other words, centurions were the enemies; the concrete presence of the occupying forces; the oppressor; the colonizer. Moreover, a centurion led the detachment that executed Jesus.

If we agree with the historical argument that Matthew and Luke shared a source that predates both gospels, then we have a Jesus tradition that celebrates inclusivity at its finest. 

The narrative, especially Luke's version, introduces Jewish leaders that defy our stereotype. They love the centurion. It also presents a centurion that defies our stereotype. This centurion loves the Jewish people, even building a synagogue for them. Finally, it presents a Jesus who makes many uncomfortable. He heals the centurion’s younger male lover or boyfriend who was very ill and close to death.

Many of you here know that two words play important functions in the narrative. Doulos and pais. Doulos is always translated slave. While pais is usually translated servant. But we also know that pais can be translated servant, son, daughter, child, child servant, or younger male lover or boyfriend. Or beloved.

Caesar Augustus, probably because of the debacle the Legions experienced in Germany because there were so many wives, children, and slaves with the soldiers decreed a ban on heterosexual marriages for members of the Roman Imperial Forces. The ban was still in force during Jesus’s time. The ban lasted until 197 CE. Thus, it was not uncommon for Roman soldiers to have same sex relationships, especially with younger men.

The Occupied Jews knew this meaning of pais, Matthew, Luke, and their source knew this meaning of pais, Greek writers and philosophers spoke of pais this way, I’m pretty sure Jesus did as well. And when the centurion came to him, most probably at his wits end looking for healing for his ill and dying beloved, Jesus healed him.

Jesus did not heal him because he loved the sinner but hated the sin. He healed him because he was sick and close to death. Lest we forget, the Jewish elders, the centurion, and Jesus were united by one objective, the healing of the Centurion's younger partner; his beloved. 

Jesus did not care whether the centurion was a Gentile, an enemy of his people, and uncircumcised. He did not care if he had the right religion, the right creed, the right skin color, the right sexual orientation and gender identity …

What Jesus saw instead was this enemy who loved the Jews so dearly that the Jews loved him back. He only saw the love of the centurion for his ill and dying boyfriend, a love that transgressed borders in order to seek healing and restoration for the beloved.

This love is akin to the love that feeds the hungry, gives drink to the thirsty, welcomes the stranger, visits the sick, proclaims good news to the poor, liberates the captives, clothes the naked, and sets the oppressed free!

This is the love that believes that hope is greater than despair; that faith is stronger than fear; and that life will always conquer death. This is the love that transforms the world.