Die Hard Jeep

School was out then, and I was still in second year high school, life was quite peaceful. Coming out from school I had to get on two jeep rides to get home, one from Visayas ave. (just outside our school gate) going towards Tandang Sora and another ride from there going inside our village (which was quite big so a specific jeepney route was made).

4pm that day, everything was bathed in yellow from the color of the sun getting ready to call it a day as well. Together with one of my classmate, we took our usual jeepney ride along Visayas Ave. There was only one passenger in the jeep, a middle aged woman.

A huge blue-colored truck which looked like those that collect garbage (but it was carrying sacks of dirt at that time) passed by the jeep we were riding in blinding speed. The jeepney driver started uttering bad words and he seemed upset by the speeding truck. We could feel the driver starting to pick up speed. He was trying to catch up to the truck!

The middle aged woman sitting near the jeep entry was startled. She grabbed the iron bars above and beside her and started yelling "para!! para 'ma!!!"! at the driver who in turn, ignored her plea. My classmate and I also started clinging to the iron bars above us as we know there was no stopping the driver even if we yelled at him at point blank range, and heck we were suppose to get off at the end of the route anyway, but what could the driver be thinking! He was now probably nearing 80km/hr and was damn fast for a jeep traveling its normal route.

We could see the blue truck from afar already at the end of the route at Tandang Sora. It has gone to a halt and several jeepneys were positioned perpendicular to the street. They were blocking the trucks way. Traffic wasn't building up yet though.

The middle aged woman sa yelling and holding on to dear life, hysterical. Well it must be heart-stopping for her, being young at that time, my classmate and I felt…it was rather…exciting.
The jeep made a full stop suddenly nearing the truck, thank goodness for those leather shoes and iron bars, kept us from flying off to the front seats of the jeep. The woman jumped right off, still with some inertia left from the sudden stop, she fell to the ground on her knees. Although hurt, she ran away as quickly as she could. My classmate and I got off moments later.

The other jeepney drivers at the terminal started getting off their jeepneys. Holding on to large pipes, and other blunt weapons alike they ran towards the blue truck and started smashing its windows, reducing them to pulp!! The three passengers of the truck didn't go down, and the drivers were throwing huge rocks at them as soon as the windshield was broken.

We watched from afar, it was like a huge action movie. It turned out that the jeepney driver did recognize the blue truck and seem to have caused his co-drivers some trouble before.

The police arrived but the mess just started getting worse. I wasn't able to get home with that kind of situation on the street. So I opted to stay at my classmate's house for the meantime which was just a few minutes away.

I've never experienced such action in a single afternoon; I could've been convinced it was a scene in a movie if I saw it on film!

-Nikolai "Chiffon" Alexis