Taxi tatataxi

A military plane landed from nowhere yesterday. I was shocked and my mother was like "those don't have seats. If I remember it right, we sat on our bags when we rode something similar to that." Is there anything in this world that can still surprise my mother??

Moving on....

I'm blogging from my iPod. Realized that carrying around extra kilos of computing power with a laptop is not worth it in Manila.

We rode a taxi to the airport and now I'm waiting for my flight. The taxi driver was the special kind. The kind that gives unsolicited discounts. For a fare that is usually 400 Pesos, he only wanted 250.

This taxi driver had an interesting story and although I won't bet my life on the truth of it, it's worth telling.

The taxi driver was once managed by Light of Glory(LoG), a giant taxi company here in Iloilo. For a few years already, the taxi units of LoG operate on LPG. I have no idea on how it works but they install a compressed gas tank on the back of the car - where LPG is supposedly stored - then the LPG powers the engine. The reason that they tweak their cars into these LPG taxis is for economy.

He switched companies because this new company do not use LPG. He met a doctor once and that doctor told him about the effects of LPG leaks to human lungs. Passengers ride a taxi for at most 30 minutes, too short for any acute effect to show. Drivers, on the other hand, stay on the taxi for long stretches of hours. "6 hours or so", he says. There you feel the effects.

According to his observations, LPG taxi drivers first start losing weight, starts to cough, and in general the health just deteriorates. He was telling this story on top of trance disco music on the stereo which made it awkward. A few days ago, a driver from GDR taxi, another giant company that operates LPG Avanza units, passed away to cardiac arrest. Our taxi driver believes this is not an isolated case and that more will follow.

Even worse, these giant taxi companies sell LPG and pressure their drivers to buy from them alone. Discontented with the money they earn from operating taxis, they even monopolize the fuel. Poor drivers.

He drives a taxi from a smaller company, listens to disco/trance music, fractioned our fare and proudly declared that his diesel car can give good discounts. It's up to you to believe this man