Para!

Baguio City, Philippines
March 2025

I walk about 300 meters long from our home before I reach the Public Utility Jeepney (PUJ) terminal near the Arko or the Welcome Arch of the Baguio Loakan Airport in our barangay. The terminal is for jeepneys traversing the Baguio Plaza-Loakan route. Once you reach the Arko, you will see a lane of empty jeepneys arranged in order of trips and a queue of commuters waiting for a ride to town (Central Business District). On the first day of my field recording on March 4, 2025, I was fifth in line. As I wait for the next jeep, I counted my coins because I need 18 pesos for the 8-10-kilometer trip. We normally give our fare to the barker or someone who calls on passengers, collects fare, and assists in parking at the terminal. After giving my fare to the barker, I aboard the jeepney and immediately selected the seat at the back of the front seat passengers. Choosing a seat is a privilege for passengers who are first in line especially with the structure of a jeepney.

The jeepney’s structure is patterned from repurposed American military jeeps used for troops during the World War II (Llemit 2024). “The new look of the repurposed military jeeps included metal roofs and parallel benches facing each other, with a seating capacity between 14 to 18” (Llemit 2024). In Baguio City, most jeepneys are still patterned to this old design and structure. In addition, there are three types of seats inside a jeepney. These are the driver’s seat, the front seats beside the driver, and the two long parallel seats at the back. Thus, choosing a spot along the parallel benches is a game of puzzle for most Filipinos.

Going back to my seat behind the front seat passengers, I decided to do a field recording of a Baguio Plaza-Loakan PUJ trip from the terminal near the Arko to our destination at the Loakan PUJ terminal in T. Claudio Street in the Central Business District. The recording started at 11:48 in the morning. The jeep is almost full. The barker asks us to move so we can give space for other passengers. The first few set of sounds recorded conversations from young kids fresh from their morning classes, mothers talking to their child, and some distant moving cars. The recorder also captured a moment when a passenger on my left asked the passenger on my right to move so we can give more space to other passengers. Gladly, the passenger on my right followed. We waited for few more minutes to fill the remaining seats then the barker handed the collected fares to the driver. The driver then opens his door, takes on the driver’s seat, puts the box of fares on his counter, and started the engine. A few glances at the side mirrors for safety then he started driving from the terminal at our barangay to our destination at the Loakan PUJ terminal in T. Claudio Street.

The field recording immediately captured the soundscape inside and outside of the jeepney. Some notable sounds were from the raging engine of the jeepney, gust of wind, noises from the environment, passing cars, talking passengers, and the inevitable utterances of “Para!” Para is a term to signal the driver that you have arrived at your chosen destination. Para means to stop. It is an utterance that signals the driver to stop at a certain spot in order to drop off a passenger. In the case of the Baguio Plaza-Loakan PUJ route, the utterance of Para is used in so many different spots along the way. There are usual spots where jeepneys stop to get or drop off passengers along the route but most of the time, passengers may easily shout Para! at any location and they will be dropped off without complaint from the driver. This is one example of how jeepneys, as public transportation in the Philippines, is reliant on its passengers’ choices of destinations while observing the designated routes of each jeepney line. Thus, drop-off points are context-based and flexible. The soundscapes recorded from both the inside and outside of the in-transit jeepney defines the rich and complex sets of human activities occurring together with non-human sound sources such as the car engine, the environment, and other elements inside and outside of the moving vehicle.

As I sit comfortably close with the other passengers at the back of the front seats, I listen to the co-production of sounds and meanings attached to my personal and other people’s lived experiences in and with the jeepney. The sounds, or noise for some, are co-produced inside and outside of the public vehicle which create meanings as they exist in space over time. This is the reason behind this collection of sounds, images, and texts.

There are three sets of works in this project. The collection of sound, images, and texts compose the soundscape occurring in every trip of a Baguio Plaza-Loakan jeepney from its terminal in Loakan to its terminal in town. The first set work is this essay as a collection of words attributed to the soundscape of a jeepney. This essay argues about how sound may define the jeepney as a space of public transportation; a communal space where commuters interact in a given period of time; a public space shaped by both the human and non-human sources of sound; and, a space where the transactional utility of transportation co-exists with the socio-cultural aspects of everyday life.

The second work is the set of images taken in different jeepneys traversing the Baguio Plaza-Loakan route. The images represent the signs that narrate how jeepneys are personal and communal spaces. It is a personal space for the driver where his economic needs are met. Thus, the presence of personally chosen artefacts that pertain to how he claims ownership of the vehicle. On one hand, it is a communal public space where various types of people and their immediate environment interact. The jeepney is utilized by the driver, the barker and the passengers then they interact with the non-human actors such as the passing cars, gust of wind, noise from inside and outside of the jeepney, and other elements. All of these elements are traced, identified, and visualized in the third work of the project.

The third work is a set of graphic compositions of the field recordings conducted on March 4 and 6, 2025. The graphic compositions show how the sounds inside and outside of a Baguio Plaza-Loakan jeepney co-produce the soundscape that solely exists during the trip and in that particular jeepney. The compositions are made out of symbols that refer to various sounds from the car engine and car honks, human voices and conversations, the inevitable utterance of Para!, the gust of wind and passing cars, clinking of coins and metals, and the immediate environment.

Indeed, the jeepney is a public transportation shaped by the soundscape that exists inside and outside of it. Coming from this, it can be argued that the jeepney is a complex caricature of how human life is lived in public spaces. And, how sounds can define our lived experiences in these spaces.

Reference List:

• Philippine Daily Inquirer. (2024, April 26). End of the road? Jeepneys face uncertain future. Inquirer.net. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1933972/end-of-the-road-jeepneys-face- uncertain-future
• Filipeanut Art and Design. (2023, May 16). The Jeepney: A History, and hopefully, A Future. Filipeanut. https://filipeanut.art/the-jeepney-a-history-and-hopefully-a-future/
• Llemit, K. (2024, August 1). Repurposed ‘King of the Road’: A history of Philippine Jeepney. Philstar. https://www.philstar.com/lifestyle/arts-and- culture/2024/08/01/2374475/repurposed- king-road-history-philippine-jeepney
• Open Street Map Contributors. About Open Street Map. Open Street Map. https://www.openstreetmap.org/
• Yraola, D. (2023, June 1). Jeepney through the (y)ears. Garland Magazine. https://garlandmag.com/article/jeepney/