By Les Salapunen

By Ellianna Custodio

Darkness blankets the early coldness of the mornings, the barking of your neighbor’s dog dissipates into the background as you approach the bustling road that’s lit abuzz by racing cars and motorcycles. You take a breath, a deep one, it may not be enough to wholly brace your being for another excruciating commute process, but it takes you a step further – and with what you do every day just to get to and from school, every step matters.

The smoke emitted by the jeepneys engulfs the breath you just exhaled, your morning exercises have been composed of multiple endurance tests that happen through standing in painstakingly long lines and waiting stagnantly during even longer traffic. By the time you arrive on school grounds, you have already spent the amount of energy most of your other classmates exert by noon. This is only considering that the weather decided to cooperate with you today. If the roads were pattering with drizzles? That would have been an entirely different story. More so if sudden suspensions await upon your arrival.

What has just been described is a rather vague generalization that only depicts a quarter of the struggles that commuters brave through their daily voyages. Yet, these struggles remain behind them, concealed by the amiable facades they still manage to make despite what hardships they have to quietly endure.

All these frets for a mind that is freshly awakened  — and yet, this is only the break of dawn for a day in a commuter’s life.

Rushing Towards the Hour

On a regular basis, it takes Jarilla around 50 minutes to an hour from Cainta to reach the grounds of Ateneo Senior High School, with this timeframe being heavily dependent on the stridency of the traffic he traverses through.

“It’s a constant gamble whether I’ll be late or not,” Paeng Jarilla, a student of 12-Gonzalez, describes his apprehensions during his hefty morning commutes. Even adjusting his waking time has been fruitless in his context because cars have already begun piling up on the roads during the earliest of hours — with this situation also applying to the scenario seen under the ghastly glow of the lights within the constricting LRT.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s 5:00AM or 7:00AM, it’s almost always full,” he exclaims his sentiments for that particular mode of transportation, “Everyone is so tightly packed inside the train that you have a fear of getting snatched without noticing it.” 

Safety concerns have long remained to be an inevitable part of the commuting experience. The openness leaves one exposed to the world at large, displayed for different types of individuals to see. “There is a certain fear that comes with being a woman out that early,” Aliyah Guela of 12-Carvalho voices her personal sentiments on this particular aspect of commuting, “I grip my bag tightly, walk briskly, and avoid making eye contact with strangers. Sometimes, I encounter men who stare too long or whisper things under their breath.”

Guela’s case isn’t an isolated one. She expressed the inklings of paranoia following her trail as she expedites her routes from the far side of Marikina, a sensation that is not foreign to many commuters — especially female ones who don’t have any other company. With her being constantly on her toes, her mind has been conditioned to simultaneously balance vigilance with the digestion of knowledge, as she mentally prepares for the long school day ahead of her, going over her lessons and to-do lists for her orgs, doing so in between cramped spaces on the jeep.

Then there are commuters like Nikko Balatucan of 12-Beyzym whose times of arrival to school are largely dependent on the odds of ride-hailing apps, having to routinely fight digitized battles with fellow commuters whose trips are also reliant on the availability of these riders and the pace of their phone’s data. “If I am lucky, makakahanap agad ako ng rider, pero if not, I have to book using different apps simultaneously,” he stated.

Rides to school are excruciatingly lengthy, with one’s mind constantly vacillating between being awake and being aware. It is one thing to be stuck in traffic riding a private vehicle for hours, it is another to withstand said traffic while worrying about having to switch from one mode of transportation to the next. Music can only do so much in drowning out the distress through a commuter’s plugged earphones.

But sometimes, even that melody cannot smother the stress of having to trudge through inclement weather, which has been posed as a frequent problem commuters have no other choice but to cope with. Rhian Peregrin from 11-Goupil lives in one of the condominiums surrounding Katipunan, but despite the distance from the ASHS, she still deals with a handful of qualms whenever the weather appears bleak.

With the tricycle as her mode of transportation, she’s left open to the cascading drops, “Basang-basa lagi bag and shoes ko, at tsaka mahirap kasi kahit nasa loob ka na ng trike eh umaanggi ‘yung ulan. Pag nasa likod naman ako ng driver, super basa na ng bag ko pati na uniform ko.”

Jarilla expresses how the weight he carries becomes even more extraneous due to him having to carry around both his backpack, which contained his learning materials, and his duffel bag, which carries his sports equipment. On rainy days, he would turn to bunging all of his belongings into his backpack, as his duffel bag would inevitably still get wet.

Correspondingly, Guela would experience getting stranded mid-commute, waiting beneath a small shed shared with other strangers — and if push comes to shove, she would have to either find another viable route or brave through the downpour just to reach her destination.

“By the time I arrive at Ateneo, around 6:30AM or 7:00AM, I’ve already spent nearly three hours in motion.” She caps off her answer, recalling the affliction of every step leading up to her arrival.

The morning song plays and the bell rings, indications of the school day’s commencement. They settle down on their chairs, the first comfortable seats they have taken during the entire morning. They converse with their friends, the exhaustion far from evident. For once, they did not have to pay much heed to what surrounds them. They take another deep breath to prepare for their academics, one that is engulfed by the school air and not by the jeepney smoke.

Perching on the Asphalt

After a day spent within the ASHS corridors, the bell rings, the daily Examen resonates through the PR system, it is time to go home, the usual time for hurrahs and sighs of relief. But as every other student starts winding down their cogs, commuters are gearing up for yet another go at public transit. Whether they take that 30-minute walk from the ASHS grounds or wait line after line for the E-jeep to reach the gates leading to the teeming roads of Katipunan Avenue, both are only the first few steps in their trip home — the easiest ones, at that.

“Going home is even tougher. I often stay late for org meetings, student council work, or training, which means I leave campus around 7:30PM or 8:00PM,” Guela describes how everything hits her at once when she arrives home at unearthly hours. Dinner is often skipped for her as a considerable chunk of her allowance sags in her transportation. Added into the equation with exhaustion is the hunger that comes as a result of her costs, as previously mentioned, inducing a depleted energy with little to no motivation for reviewing anymore or even striking up conversations with anyone.

This emotional toll also translates over to Balatucan, whose routes going home vary with the urgency of his awaiting academic undertakings. Though the two methods differ in how quickly they bring him home, the complexities aren’t too sparse, he states, “If I don’t have time to spare, usually if I have an upcoming assessment, I’d take the Luzon route. Otherwise, I’d go to Cubao.”

Balatucan continues, “Basically, I could go home faster kasi if sa Luzon ako dadaan since I just have to ride a tricycle (Tricyle malapit sa Miriam College, sa tapat ng Savemore, to Luzon) and two jeeps (Hi-Way jeep to Tandang Sora Bayan Palengke then from there to NIA), compared to Cubao na I have to ride an LRT (Katipunan to Cubao) and an MRT (Cubao to North Avenue).”

There are instances where there are no available tricycles near Miriam College, so with that predicament, Balatucan resorts to walking all the way to U.P. Town Center just to catch a tricycle. Part of this process is a wrangle most commuters can identify with, “Ta’s I have to deal with the long lines pa sa jeep papuntang NIA.”

A big portion of the exhaustion caused by commuting comes from the seemingly illimitable lines and the aspects that overwhelm this — such as the humidity that permeates through the proximity of individuals standing shoulder to shoulder, the weight of their loaded bags, and the mental drainage that the academic day has brought about. The fatigue emanating from these waits seeps from the body all the way through the mind, at the end of the day, commuters are also students, whose trips weigh on their productivity.

Balatucan recounts how being a commuter has taken a toll on his study habits, which is especially emphasized during full-day schedules — consequently, he handles this by sleeping upon his arrival at home only to wake up during the wee hours of the morning. Jarilla, on the other hand, experiences the same weariness, stating how commuting has taken some of his time and energy away from studying, but manages things differently from Balatucan, “I don’t really cope with it, I just push through. It’s required.”

“If I do end up getting caught in rush hour, it becomes really tiring. I’m already tired from school, and to add on the stress of commuting, I almost crash on the bed when I get home.” He chronicles how the exhaustion wrought by commuting has embedded itself into his daily life, doing so has even brought him physical pain, “I find the struggle of back pain annoying. My back hates me. Since I carry a lot, a laptop, papers, notebooks, back pain is common.”

Conversely, Peregrin expresses similar sentiments, saying how the commute process somehow governs her frame of mind, “Naaapektuhan lang ng pagcocommute ‘yung mood ko pagkapasok ko sa school. Pag oks ‘yung byahe, oks din pagkapasok. Pag stressful ang byahe, stressed din pagkapasok.”

Similarly, Guela’s mornings are filled with the heftiness upon her body; while her nights are hollow of thoughts as her mind feels too tired to even think. There have been days where this influence trickles down to her motivation to push through as a student, “I’ve had days where I wanted to give up, where the distance felt like a barrier between who I am and who I want to be.”

But amidst everything, a silver lining sits tight, one that does not aim to dash student-commuters’ perseverance on stones, but rather sharpens it, not just reminding them of what lies ahead — reaching deep into the ground to further root their whys. Guela underscores this, “It’s about enduring the everyday things that try to break you.

In Light of the Excursion:

“Other days, I remind myself that I am doing this for a reason — for my education, for my future, and for my family.” Guela states wholeheartedly, a clear utterance of what continues to incentivize her every day.

Each commuter experience may be tied together by the overarching hassles of public transportation, but these individuals are couriers of different stories, different reasons for why they keep progressing ahead. While substantial, what’s been told thus far cannot encompass every creed of student-commuters. The journey, as wrenching as it can be, has to be trudged through, because each of them has a role to fulfill and a home to return to.

“I think being a commuter has helped me become prudent when it comes to decision-making.” Balatucan articulates. With the continuous unpredictabilities laid by commuting, such as vehicle delays, maneuvering different types of people, and inclement weather, commuters have been sharpened to think quickly on their feet, having to brew up sudden solutions, a skill that’s become advantageous — essential, even.

“Siguro ‘yung pagiging patient. Kasi nga super traffic and ang paghihintay ng trike.” Peregrin then continues to add onto this, “‘Yung pagiging alerto kasi unahan talaga sa pagsakay. Maaapply ko siya sa school for example need ko maging patient sa dami ng workload bago ako makapagpahinga or maging patient sa paghihintay ng work ng groupmates ko.”

The interminable waits have ingrained amenability into their countenances, elaborated through everlasting lines at waiting sheds, terminals, and stations, as well as through wedged vehicles congesting the roads, leaving little crannies for a person to even walk in between them. Sometimes, walking even presents itself as a more plausible option over sitting stagnantly in traffic, but both approaches still result in the same scale of exhaustion.

“It’s taught me to endure. It’s incredibly tough to commute, and I wish that I had a car to take me there, but the grass is always greener on the other side.” Jarilla points out one of the perks that commuting has afforded him, which was the freedom to accomplish his personal plans after classes. It has also given him the ability to face his plights, realizing his own agency of owning up to his decisions.

“It’s taught me discipline and empathy.” Guela delineates how she’s gained the capability to value each coming second, that time is more precious than how much we let it pass on, that safety is a common matter for some but a luxury for others, that moments of stillness should be realized with more gratitude, “It made me realize how much effort it takes just to show up everyday — and how easily people overlook that.”

The grit and perseverance continuously shown by commuters should not just be something we have to momentarily pay heed to or the subject of fleeting discussions; they deserve to be commended, for always coming around and fulfilling their part, whether someone is watching or not.

And as the roads begin to clear, engines start to quiet down, the lights dim, the streets are tranquil, and darkness begins to blanket the coldness of the night, a deep breath is taken. The day has come to a close, yet even the mattress’ softness feels transient, an interim between insurmountable exhaustions. Eyes drift into a doze, hopeful that each step taken today lived up to how much it mattered, but also expectant of the same afflicting routine the following day.